Liebe und Krieg
by CaptainMotgane
Summary: A historical AU set during WWII in occupied Poland. German Soldier Reiner Braun's entire world and everything he had ever known is shaken to the core when he meets a young Jewish man who threatens to change his views on the war. Will Bertholdt Fubar's ideals and feelings be enough to cause Reiner to betray his own country?
1. Chapter 1

Reiner Braun, 17 years old and fresh out of training, was assigned his very first mission. Though it wasn't a considerably large mission, it still put pressure on his shoulders nonetheless. He was to travel out with his superior officers to a small village running under the name Baranow in West Poland to see if any of the families were harbouring Jews. It was small and run-down, a perfect hiding place, and Reiner hoped to make his first catch.

"Braun," a voice cut through his musings, "pay attention."

Reiner looked up and nodded his head, choosing not to talk back. He'd learned that talking back to his superiors - even if it was to acknowledge them - was pointless, and that it would only earn him a hard boot to the stomach in the end.

"Good, now listen," the voice gritted out, "I want you to take the farm at the very end of this road, see, the one with the blue shutters?" The man pointed toward a broken and weather-beaten farm that stood at the end of a rocky road. It looked abandoned to Reiner, however, almost every farm they came across looked abandoned to Reiner's eyes.

"Alone?" Reiner asked. As far as Reiner knew, he was to stick to his superiors at all times as he was too young to take on a mission all alone.

"Of course," the man said with a snide grin, "why, are you too much of pussy, Braun?"

Reiner wanted to grit his teeth, but stopped himself and shook his head at the lieutenant. "No."

"Then go in there, threaten the farmer and his family, and slaughter every Jew in there, Got it? It's simple."

Reiner nodded his head and stepped out of the kubelwagen, head held high despite the heckling he had received from his superiors.

* * *

_"Stay as quiet as possible,_" those were the last words Bertholdt had heard before he was pushed haphazardly into a small wooden crate and then covered with hay. His tall and lanky frame was causing him an immense amount of discomfort, however he couldn't complain. He didn't have the luxury. These people who knew nothing about him were hiding him, stowing him away and keeping him safe from the German soldiers that threatened his life everyday. If they slipped up, they would die.

They would die because of Bertholdt.

So Bertholdt did as he was told and remained quiet, tucking his body up until he was comfortably seated at the bottom of the crate.

As soon as Bertholdt was becoming less anxious about the impending visit of a German soldier, one was finally at the doorstep. Bertholdt thought he could bear it, he truly believed that he wouldn't be scared out of his wits because he had already endured the terror of the German soldiers before. But, there he was at the bottom of the crate, trying to control the intense shaking that overpowered his thin frame.

He was truly terrified. Alone, cold, and terrified beyond all imagination.

The soldier knocked once – twice, the farm became incredibly silent. Even the sounds of the animals disappeared.

Bertholdt felt his chest seize up when he listened to the door opening, and his heart pounded furiously when he heard the sound of the soldiers heels clapping against the ground as he entered the farm. He waited for the roaring sound of the soldiers voice, gripping his knees tight to his chest.

_"Sprechen Sie Englisch?"_

Normally the first words spoken by the invading German soldiers, and despite how non-threatening the words were they still scared Bertholdt.

Bertholdt shut his eyes, cowering into the corner of the crate. He was so close to the front of the room that he could smell the faint musk that wafted off of the soldier that walked into the farm. It smelled clean, and it made Bertholdt long to bathe. It had been so long.

"Yes," the farmer's voice cut through the over-bearing silence.

"Good," the man said, Bertholdt could almost see the nod and the confident smirk that went with it, "I imagine you know why I'm here already."

There was silence, but Bertholdt knew that one of the farmers had nodded their heads as the soldier continued speaking.

"So, are you hiding any Jews in this farm?"

He cut to the chase.

There was silence, a long, drawn out silence, before the farmer said a quick and simple, "no."

Bertholdt could hear the sound of heels clapping against wood again as the soldier began pacing, this was the typical way they would act – their attempt to be intimidating. And truly, as far as Bertholdt concerned, it was intimidating.

"Do you know the kind of punishment that will befall any person hiding a Jew?"

"Yes," another quick answer, this time with more worry behind it.

"However, to be fair, if you rat out anyone in this farm right now, no harm will befall you or your family. Appealing trade, no?"

Bertholdt felt sweat forming on his brow, and he felt his heart silently groan in terror; the farmer was already close to cracking under the pressure. Bertholdt felt his legs twitch involuntarily, already prepared to run. Even though he knew he wouldn't get far, he wanted to at least try to get away.

He had escaped capture once, after all, however that had only happened because he had been helped.

"I don't think you know the full extent of what we would do, so let me recount some past stories to you…" the soldier said, the sound of his boots hitting the floor coming to a stop. "The last family that we found out after thorough research were gutted. Strung up like fish on a pike. The next family's wife was viola-"

"Enough," the man shouted, voice quivering with unshed tears.

Tears streamed down Bertholdt's cheeks. He knew it wasn't fair, and that Mr. Bartcz had every reason to rat him out, but he couldn't stop himself from feeling betrayed by the man.

Was his life so insignificant?

"Where are they?" The soldier asked.

Mr. Bartcz swallowed hard, "we only have one, a young boy... He's inside the crate in the living room."

Before the man could even finish his sentence, Bertholdt busted out of the crate and ran. There was nowhere to go, truly, nothing but flat farmland covered the area as far as they eye could see. He knew he wouldn't get away this time, and that his punishment would probably be lessened if he just gave himself up, but he couldn't stop his feet from carrying him into the wheat field.

Even when he felt a gunshot whiz past his head, close enough to rustle a few hairs, he continued running.

Bertholdt heard the man screaming behind him, could hear the fury and frustration in his voice, but he couldn't bring himself to turn around and face it despite knowing that he would be caught very soon. The soldier was close, close enough that it sent shivers up Bertholdt's spine.

Bertholdt listened as the soldiers standing on guard outside of the farm roared their approval in their own tongue.

"Get him Braun, you have this one!" They chanted and shouted the same thing until their voices disappeared and were replaced by the sound of the engine of their dreaded kubelwagen revving.

Bertholdt had just reached a tree with fresh apples springing from it when he felt something heavy and solid collide with his back; knocking the wind out of his lungs and causing him to collapse to the ground in a heap. It was only when he felt the cold barrel of a gun press into the back of his head that he realized the soldier had thrown himself into him to stop him from running.

"Finally," the man said, breathing harshly from the mad dash he had made. "You Jews always think you can run away from us, but it never works out in the end."

Bertholdt didn't say anything.

"Turn around," the man snapped at him, ramming the butt of his gun into the back of his head hard enough to send stars sprawling in front of Bertholdt's eyes.

Bertholdt slowly turned himself around, trying not to make any quick motions so as not to upset the soldier. He turned himself fully around, but wouldn't meet eyes with the soldier out of fear and deep set defiance.

"Look at me, not the ground."

Bertholdt slowly looked up, only to realize that the German soldier he had been so afraid of was no older than he was, however, that didn't make him any less frightening or capable of causing pain.

Bertholdt, expecting to receive a snide comment or a kick to the face from the soldier in question, was surprised to see that the soldier was being completely silent. And, as if that weren't strange enough, he looked at Bertholdt as if he were trying to figure something out. But, this confused look only lasted for a few seconds before the previous stern and angry look replaced it.

"Name?" The man asked. Bertholdt could already hear the sound of the formidable green kubelwagens approaching from behind the soldier, so there was no point in avoiding it anymore. He was caught, and this time there was no way out of it. No one would help him this time.

Bertholdt swallowed hard, "Bertholdt Fubar."

The man was quiet, pinning Bertholdt with that look that he still couldn't quite understand. All Bertholdt knew about that look was that it wasn't murderous, and that was all that mattered to him in his present condition.

The man kept his eyes trained on him even as the kubelwagen came to a rolling halt only two feet behind him.

Minutes passed by like days as Bertholdt listened to the doors of the kubelwagen slamming shut as the soldiers inside jumped out.

"You're first catch, Braun, and it was a runner this time," the man with the roaring voice finally came into view, clearly the younger man's superior. "Good job, you did well."

"Let's see," the man said as he leaned down in front of Bertholdt, taking his chin into his hand and turning his head harshly from side to side. "This one's really dark, but he's definitely a Jew," the man said as he addressed the younger soldier. "What did he say his name was?"

"Bertholdt Fubar," the younger soldier said, eyes still trained on his face.

"Really, a German? How in the hell did he end up way the hell over here in Poland?" The older soldier looked him over carefully.

"He's got blood all over his clothing, and he was alone, I'm wondering if his family was not already killed and he got away."

The older soldier stood up nodding his head, and as if to add insult to injury, kicked him in the gut hard enough to cause him to double over from the pain. "Watch those eyes, Jew."

As Bertholdt waited for the pain in his stomach to subside, he felt strong arms wrap around his own and lift him away from the ground. Too tired, too complacent to even care anymore, Bertholdt didn't even bother lifting his head to see what they were doing with him. Even when he felt his body collide with the plastic siding on the inside of the kubelwagen, he didn't bother looking up.

He was truly tired of running, and it was time to face reality.

Bertholdt felt the engine revving up again, keeping his head pressed into the side of the car. He hoped the soldiers would think he was asleep, and maybe leave him alone until they got back to their base. Even a brief reprieve would help Bertholdt clear his head and sort through his thoughts.

"Do you like that Jew, Braun?"

The question was posed in the soldiers native tongue, however, after having spent 9 years of his life in Germany, Bertholdt was all too familiar with it.

"What do you mean?" the younger soldier asked him.

"You had a really intense expression on your face when you were looking at him," the as-of-yet silent soldier in the passenger seat said, "even I noticed it."

"Unless you just really wanted to kill him," the older soldier laughed, "and if that's so, then go ahead when we get back. Do what you will with him until the trains get back."

_"The trains,"_ Bertholdt thought distantly, the trains that he had already escaped once before. He never wanted to face that again, he would rather be shot.

The younger soldier rolled his eyes at the two older soldiers in the front of the kubelwagen.

"He is kind of nice looking, I guess," the man at the wheel said, "well, compared to what we've been seeing so far. Nothing but old, dying Jews."

The other sighed aloud, "Would it hurt to find at least one young girl?"

The older laughed as he pulled a cigarette out of his breast pocket, making a point to look behind at Bertholdt, "he's not bad, if we keep him on his stomach he'll be as good as any girl."

Bertholdt felt his heart hammer against his ribs erratically despite the full body weariness setting in. He knew that the German soldiers often did that, but the thought of being the target of something so cruel made him want to cry. He had to remain silent though, or he would face something even worse.

There was a dragging silence that seemed like it would go on forever, until out of nowhere the younger soldier said, "you're not truly planning on using him for that, are you?"

The soldier at the front answered without missing a beat, "and if we are?"

The rest of the drive to the base was generally quiet, and in the silence, Bertholdt had actually fallen asleep – it had been a long time since he'd successfully fallen asleep.

* * *

"Wake up, Jew," Bertholdt was awoken by a harsh shake to his arm, then unceremoniously dragged out of the kubelwagen before he even had time to react. He was pushed into the cold ground, only to have his arms bound behind him in a cutting rope.

Bertholdt turned around to look at who had dragged him out of the car, half expecting to see the younger soldier. However, it wasn't the younger soldier, it was the older soldier who was tying him up.

He should have known better than to chance turning around.

Before he even had a chance to turn back around to face the building, a foot collided with his right cheek and sent him sprawling. When he made impact with the ground, his chin hit the asphalt hard enough to cause him to bite his bottom lip, splitting it and causing blood to drool down his face.

He looked up from the ground in his haze, accidentally meeting eyes with another soldier. However, this time he met eyes with the younger soldier, who was currently standing in front of the entrance doors to the building. He looked upset, but whether it was at Bertholdt or not was to question.

"Reiner, come and take this one into the room at the back," the older soldier called from behind him before stomping down on his head hard enough to cause his vision to spin out.

Bertholdt couldn't quite keep his eyes open anymore, and the last thing he saw was the younger soldiers feet coming closer and closer.

_Reiner_, that was his name.

* * *

**A/N: I was sitting alone in my bedroom last night panicking about my first year of uni when inspiration suddenly struck me – also, it was 5:00 in the morning because the nerves keep me awake. Anyway, I was kind of 'iffy' about writing this at first because of where these two characters currently are in the manga. I was afraid that I would start writing something, and have the manga totally throw me for a loop and break my inspiration by killing one of the characters or changing the character altogether. But, I soon decided to just go with it, and said "shit happens" and got rolling. I'm currently in the middle of a pretty big fic right now in another fandom, and I feel kind of guilty about starting another multi-chapter fic, but, again, "shit happens."**

**Thanks for reading guys, and feel free to point out any historical inaccuracies or general whoopsies. I never claimed to be a historian – nor a writer, at that.**


	2. Chapter 2

Bertholdt awoke to a dim light with a splitting headache and a sore stomach, and to make matters worse for the first 5 minutes of his wakefulness the fact that he had been captured hadn't fully set in. It was only when his feet hit the cold cement floors that he realized where he was. Bertholdt recoiled immediately, pulling his feet back from the floor and tucking them under the thin blanket that covered his body.

The cell was cold.

Bertholdt sat in the bed, staring at the blank cement wall in front of him until a knock on the solid metal door to his cell broke him out of his stupor.

"Are you awake?" The voice called through the metal grate on the door.

From what Bertholdt could see through the cracks in the grate, it was the younger German soldier from before, the one whose name was '_Reiner_'. Bertholdt felt more at ease when he realized that it was him even though he knew feeling that way was wrong – that was the way the soldiers wanted you to feel around them.

But what harm would it do Bertholdt? He would be dead within the month, and he preferred sooner rather than later.

Bertholdt realized he hadn't answered the man about whether he was awake or not, but he had entered despite that.

The man had a bowl of something in his hand that was no doubt oats. He made his way cautiously into the room as if he expected Bertholdt to jump up and try to run again, or maybe even attack him. Bertholdt couldn't help but notice how close his left hand was to the gun in the holster around his leg.

He handed the bowl unceremoniously to Bertholdt as he pulled a chair up for himself, threateningly close to the side of Bertholdt's bed.

Bertholdt looked up at him with an expression that asked 'what?' hoping that the man would finally speak up and bring him out of the dark.

"What camp you go to right now is riding on which train comes back first, but as far as we know you will be transported to Auschwitz with the rest of the captives,"Reiner was quiet as he watched Bertholdt eat, waiting for him to finish the scant dish before continuing. "However, the trains will only be returning in a week – maybe two if they continue having problems with the passengers…"

_"Good,"_ Bertholdt thought, _"I hope they give them as much trouble as possible."_

"… Now that that's all out of the way, I'm the one who was chosen to interrogate you."

_"Interrogate?"_ Bertholdt thought, he didn't know why they would need to do that if they were just going to have him killed in the end.

"Why?" Reiner asked without Bertholdt even saying anything aloud.

Bertholdt nodded his head slowly. He was lucky, he knew that if it were another soldier he would have had another black eye to go along with the large red welt he had on his face from the kick he had received the day before.

"If you're going to stay here for a week, then we need to know about your past. Besides, judging by the blood on your clothing, and the fact that you were alone, we're assuming that you have escaped capture once before. It's more curiosity fuelling us than anything."

_"That's what I thought," _Bertholdt thought to himself as he tried to figure out what to tell the soldier.

"I… I d-" Bertholdt tried, but with all the force he gave it he couldn't get his voice to come out. He tried again, but he could only stutter out random words at best.

"You what?" Reiner asked him.

Bertholdt swallowed hard, "I don't know where to start."

Reiner sighed, "how about you start with what a German Jew is doing in Poland during the war, hmm?"

Bertholdt thought over his response carefully, weeding out any mistakes he could make so he wouldn't anger the soldiers. "My family moved to Poland 8 years ago when the market started failing, we started working as farmers out in the East."

Reiner hummed under his breath, pulling a notepad and a pen out of his back pocket, scratching a few words down before looking back up at Bertholdt. "How old were you when they decided to move?"

"Nine."

"Then you were old enough to hold most of the language," Reiner said with a nod.

"Yes."

"It's clear that your family isn't around anymore, so what happened to them? Were they caught in hiding, or did they get found out immediately."

His questions were harsh and unforgiving, but Bertholdt couldn't deny him anything. As much as Bertholdt wanted to die, there was still a small part of him that was afraid to.

"We were hiding in the basement of a family friend's house, but they couldn't hold their tongue anymore because their family was threatened." Bertholdt didn't want to speak about his family's death because he had never had a chance to even grieve for them, but he knew he couldn't hold his tongue any longer because he would be beaten. Just as before, terror was the only thing keeping his mouth moving, "my little sister and my older brother were killed by the soldiers to make a point to us, and the rest of us were taken to the trains."

Reiner cocked his head, "how, exactly, did you manage to get away from the trains?"

"The polish police pulled me out of the crowd," Bertholdt said. There was no point in lying about how he had gotten away, and the two men that had saved him wouldn't be killed because he couldn't even remember what they looked like or what their names were even if someone had asked him.

Reiner cursed under his breath as he scratched something down harshly on the notepad in front of him, he seemed extremely angry about the Polish police intervening and saving him. It was only then that Bertholdt truly remembered what kind of force he was dealing with, and that no matter how hard he looked there would be no redeeming qualities about Reiner. He was the same as all the other soldiers, he just wanted every Jew exterminated and to be crowned a hero in the end.

"After all that, what happened?"

"Directly after that, I wandered around until I came across the farm you found me at," Bertholdt said. "At first, they didn't want to take me in, but they decided in the end that it would be OK because I was alone and young."

Reiner chuckled mockingly, "bad choice."

"Hmm."

Reiner reached his hand out, and for a moment Bertholdt believed that he was going to hit him, but instead he grabbed the front of his shirt where it was stained. "The blood, that was from your little sister and your older brother?"

"Yes."

"Were they shot, or were they stabbed?"

"My little sister had her throat cut in front of us, and when my brother tried to stop them they shot him point blank."

* * *

Reiner knew that he wasn't supposed to feel bad for the Jews, he knew that they were bad and only trying to deceive him – and the one in front of him was certainly making a case – but he was having a hard time not feeling horrible for Bertholdt. The Jew in front of him was taller than him in height, no doubt, but he still managed to look tiny where he sat on the bed, and the way his voice quivered when he talked about his family made Reiner pity him.

He knew it was wrong, but despite that he couldn't stop himself from feeling for the Jew.

So, to cover up his tracks and not let the Jew get comfortable around him, he laughed after he had explained how his younger sister and his older brother had died. Deep down he had wanted to pat the Jew's shoulder to comfort him, maybe tell him it would be alright, but he knew that if he had done something like that his actions would never have been forgiven. If he had been found out, he would have surely lost his hand.

Bertholdt didn't seem hurt or even distraught by Reiner's laugh, he just looked at him with the same expression he had had on his face since they had captured him at the farm. Reiner wanted to do something to get a reaction out of him, but he knew the only thing he could do was induce fear in him, and that wasn't necessarily the reaction he wanted.

He didn't know what kind of reaction he wanted from him.

Reiner sighed and clapped a hand to his forehead, standing up from the chair he had pulled up to Bertholdt's bunk and leaving the cell without another word. He had gotten all the information he needed from the Jew, there was no reason for him to stick around any longer.

* * *

"So, Braun," Reiner's captain started, "what did you do with the Jew?"

"What do you mean?" Reiner asked, "I interviewed him like you told me to and I got everything we needed from him."

There was a short silence, then a laugh, "well, I did want you to interview him, but I didn't really put a time limit on you or any kind of restriction, did I?"

"No…" Reiner had a feeling he knew what the captain meant, but he wanted to remain as oblivious as possible so he wouldn't receive a heckling from him again.

"You know what I mean, Braun, stop acting like a little kid." The captain laughed, "for Christ's sake, I'm giving you full opportunity, most young lieutenants would jump at the chance I'm giving you. Aren't you frustrated? Lonely?"

"Stop," Reiner said, holding a hand up at the captain despite it being a grave offence, "I told you, I don't want that."

"Well, just know that no one's stopping you," the captain said, "or anyone else in here, for that matter."

"You wouldn't do that," Reiner said, "you have more mistresses than I can count on one hand that are at your beck and call, you don't need to do that – to a man, no less."

The captain laughed at him again, this time harder than before, "are you protecting him, Reiner?"

Reiner swallowed hard, the captain was addressing him by his first name, that always meant that he was only one word off from being beaten into place. "Of course I'm not protecting him, he's a filthy Jew, I could care less what you do," Reiner said without missing a beat, "I just don't understand why anyone would want to take someone like that."

Reiner waited patiently for the captain to either speak again, or for a fist to collide with his face.

"I guess you're right, Braun," he said, "but tonight, since we're so short on men, could you watch over the Jew?"

"Yes."

* * *

Reiner returned to the room with food in his arms along with a change of clothes for Bertholdt. Even though they were basic prison clothes, Reiner could tell that Bertholdt wanted nothing more than to change out of his filthy clothing that was still soiled with the blood of his own family.

Without warning Reiner, Bertholdt began pulling the clothes off of his body and replacing it with the fresh clothes he had been handed.

Bertholdt jolted hard when Reiner pressed one of his hands against his back, almost causing Reiner to jump himself.

"These bruises," Reiner started as he stared at the endless injuries scaling Bertholdt's torso. "Some of them are discolored, so you didn't get them here…"

"Mr. Bartcz made some of those," Bertholdt said uncomfortably as he pulled the loose fitting shirt over his head, "he didn't want me there, it was really his wife that had made the decision to take me in."

"So he hit you?"

"Yes," Bertholdt said, "it was better than him hitting his wife, no? I'm just a Jew, it's not like it matters if he hit me or not anyways."

Reiner didn't have a response, so instead he motioned for Bertholdt to sit down.

"You're not to be left alone until you're…" Reiner tried to think of a way to not mention the trains to Bertholdt, "transported to the other facilities."

"OK," Bertholdt said before laying his head against the pillow and turning his back to Reiner.

Reiner was angry about that, but not for the reasons he should have been – which in turn only just fuelled his anger even further. Bertholdt was turning his back so easily to a German soldier, someone who wouldn't be afraid to stab him in the back at any moment. It was already unsafe being in the presence of one, but turning your back to one? Even though Reiner wouldn't do it himself, he knew many people that wouldn't hesitate.

Reiner didn't know why, but he wanted the Jew to talk to him, even just to acknowledge him. He didn't think his feelings were about maintaining dominance, because he had dealt with many Jews before and never felt such a thing toward them. Reiner truly didn't know what he was feeling.

"You should never turn your back to a soldier," Reiner said.

"Why not?" Bertholdt asked, "either way, I'm going to die."

"Well…" Reiner didn't know what to tell him, what Bertholdt was saying was true. "Wouldn't you rather have time to… Think about everything."

"Think about what?" Bertholdt asked, "think about how my people were slaughtered for nothing because some man with a voice that happened to be louder than the rest told them that they were bad? Some man who did nothing but brainwash an entire country into believing ridiculous lies."

Bertholdt turned himself over on the bed until he was facing Reiner, face only a few inches away from his, "do you really believe the things that man says, or do you only love feeling like a hero? Do you really believe that I slaughter children and drink their blood, hmm? Do you really think that I purposely cause harm to German people? Do you think, even with the same God, that I somehow go against him - that I worship Satan?"

Reiner was awestruck, the Jew had just dragged the Fuhrer's name through the mud and simultaneously disrespected about every German soldier he had ever known. However, it wasn't Bertholdt's sudden anger that had surprised Reiner so much, but how truthful most of what he said was. Reiner wanted to be a hero; he wanted to protect people, that was true, but were the stories about the Jews true? Weren't they told that they would be deceitful, and capable of tricking them into believing their lies.

However, when Reiner looked at Bertholdt, he saw nothing harmful or bad about him. Nothing about Bertholdt reminded him of the stories he had heard about the Jews, in fact, no Jew he had ever come across had looked like the stories.

Reiner shook his head harshly, this was what the Jews wanted.

"That's right, I just talked bad about the Fuhrer. A filthy Jew just told you the facts about your stupid war," Bertholdt shouted. "Kill me, shoot me, fuck me, maim me, do whatever you want with me!" Bertholdt felt tears springing at the corners of his eyes, but he didn't bother stopping himself. There was no point in saving face in front of a German soldier, there was no point in trying to avoid being hit. He was going to die one way or the other.

Reiner was going to hit Bertholdt to calm him down, but when he raised his hand he realized he couldn't do it. He couldn't do it because his thoughts were so disoriented that he could barely think clearly.

"Go to sleep," Reiner finally said through gritted teeth.

Bertholdt only looked at him like he was insane.

"Go to sleep right now or so help me I will call the captain into this room and have you tortured," Reiner said, maintaining as threatening an aura as possible. "This is your last chance, Jew."

Bertholdt let out a deep breath of air, turned his back to Reiner, and fell asleep.

* * *

**A/N: I accidentally stayed up until 5:00 in the morning writing this chapter. Whoops. **


	3. Chapter 3

**_Trigger Warning:_ There is a rape scene in this that isn't detailed, however it is still implied and there is some non-consensual touching and mentions of suicide in this text. I wanted to let you all know before you delved into the chapter so you weren't taken by surprise or upset by the content. **

* * *

It had been three days since they'd brought the Jew to live in their base, and already there were arguments in the ranks about his presence. It was true that they had other Jews in their base, however none of them were treated with priority like Bertholdt was. That was what truly angered the other soldiers. Reiner would constantly be checking on him to make sure he was properly fed, and most of the soldiers within the base were certain that Reiner was just in there to make sure that no one was harming him.

Whether Reiner denied it or not, it was clear to everyone that he was beginning to feel for the Jew in just the short amount of time he had been in his custody.

"You do realize, Braun, that he would cut your throat without giving it another thought if it meant his freedom, right?"

"Who?" Reiner asked, feigning obliviousness.

"You know who I'm talking about," the captain said, slapping the back of Reiner's head with one of his gloved hands.

Reiner wanted to glare at the man with everything in him, but he knew that he was already stepping over an invisible line by disagreeing and playing dumb with the captain. If the General came back and heard about all his missteps, he would no doubt be punished severely. Reiner was only lucky that the captain overseeing him happened to be a little more flamboyant and laid back than the others he had seen.

"I know," Reiner answered simply, "but he can't do that, he doesn't have the power or the means to even try that with me."

"It doesn't matter," he said, "the Jews are deceitful creatures. He's just getting you to let your guard down so he can try to coax you into letting him have his way."

"I'm not that foolish," Reiner said.

"I hope not, Braun, for your sake."

Reiner only grunted and walked the opposite way to avoid the captain, but it seemed he was in a mood to bother, "I'll leave you alone, Braun, but I want you to remember your rank. I have absolute power over you, and when you move on, the general will. I just want you to know that this behaviour right here would get you publicly shamed and humiliated in front of your comrades. You don't associate with the Jews, Reiner, you kill them."

* * *

"Bertholdt," Bertholdt heard his name from through the grate of the solid metal door. Bertholdt didn't know when it had happened, but Reiner had started calling him by his first name rather than calling him just "Jew". It bothered Bertholdt, but it also made Bertholdt feel better about what was about to happen to him. If he could die knowing that he at least made one German realize even a small grain of the truth, then he could die happily.

Bertholdt didn't answer, as usual, and continued reading with his nose pressed close to the book in his hands. And, as usual, Reiner entered the cell without hearing so much as a peep from him.

"Do you like the book?" Reiner asked, his voice so unusually casual that Bertholdt almost looked up at him from where his eyes were trained incredulously.

"Yeah," Bertholdt responded easily, not tearing his eyes off the pages despite not even following the words anymore. As soon as he felt Reiner's presence, he couldn't focus on anything else besides him.

His feelings were pretty pathetic considering Reiner was going to be one of the soldiers at fault for his death, and in a way, he would indirectly be the one pulling the trigger or pouring the acid on him. He had been the one who had captured him after he fled from the farm, after all. If it weren't for Reiner, Bertholdt would have had a higher chance of getting away.

Although, as twisted as it was, Bertholdt was happy that he had been caught. Eventually, he would have been found out, and even if he hadn't – a life on the run was not a life, just an existence. Bertholdt was lucky, in fact, that he had ended up at a base with younger soldiers whose minds were still fresh and pliable. The younger they were, the easier time they would have seeing the truth about the war they were fighting. One thing Bertholdt wanted to know, though, was why Reiner was not out on the front lines and way back in a broken down military base in Poland.

But, being that Bertholdt had no authority to say anything, he kept his mouth shut and just kept his own thoughts to himself, hoping that maybe Reiner would bring up the war in some way eventually.

Bertholdt had been on the run with his family for months, and he had been alone for a long period of time as well. At present, he wasn't even sure of what the date was – a year could have passed for all he knew, however he hoped that was not the case.

"What year is it?" Bertholdt asked out of nowhere, cutting Reiner off in a spiel about something he had seen outside in one of the farms.

Reiner looked at him quizzically, "you don't know what year it is?"

Bertholdt shook his head, "I don't know the date at all."

"It's the 20th of July 1943," Reiner said.

Bertholdt shook his head in disbelief before slowly saying, "1943, not 1942?"

"No, it's the 20th of July 1943," Reiner repeated himself calmly. "I couldn't be more certain."

"Is… What's happening out there?"

"Right now?" Reiner asked, "Rome was bombed yesterday, but otherwise things seem to be alright within Germany."

_"I don't care about Germany,"_ Bertholdt thought, _"what about the allies, are they winning? Please tell me that they're winning."_

"But you don't really care about the success of the axis, do you? You want to know if the allies are making any headway in the war and what condition Poland is in."

Bertholdt looked down at his hands, that should have been obvious but something about the tone of Reiner's voice made him feel bad.

"Warsaw was reduced to rubble – and that isn't over exaggerating. Poland has fallen, and is currently under German control. As for the allies, well, they're putting up a fight against us, that's for sure."

"Are they winning?" Bertholdt couldn't stop the words from slipping out even though he knew they must have cut the German. Reiner was as honest as they came, so he wouldn't lie to Bertholdt no matter what his feeling were about the war.

"The allies are putting up a fight," Reiner said, leaving the rest hanging.

Bertholdt's words were caught in his throat for a while, he couldn't believe how easily the words left the soldiers mouth, considering he was an axis member himself. A member of any side would automatically say that they were winning, or that they would win, but Reiner seemed incredibly doubtful about his own position in the war.

Since Reiner was being so honest, Bertholdt realized that it would be alright for him to step a little over the line with him, "do you believe that the war will end soon?"

Reiner shook his head and answered immediately, "from what I can see, there is no end in sight."

At those words Bertholdt truly wished that he hadn't begun asking questions about the war altogether. He would have rather died thinking that maybe – just maybe – the war had a foreseeable end and that the people suffering through it had a future to look forward to. Hearing such a dark and truthful admittance from a German soldier – an honest German soldier who took things at face value – just made Bertholdt feel hopeless and sick inside, he felt like there was truly nothing left to live for when it came down to it.

However, there was always that ever present nagging feeling at the back of his mind telling him that he needed to live, that there was a purpose - no matter how little - to his life.

"That's not what you wanted to hear," Reiner asked, more of a rhetorical question than anything.

"Of course it isn't," Bertholdt said.

"Well, it's not what I want to believe either, but it's fact. Lying to yourself will only make it harder to handle. You need to take it in stride."

Bertholdt laughed humourlessly, "well, it's easy for you to say 'take it in stride' while your people are living comfortably and peacefully while my people are dying painfully. The war isn't even nearing an end; you can't take mass genocide in stride." Bertholdt dog-eared the book he was holding and put it onto the small end table beside his palette bed. "We're all going to be wiped out, and it doesn't look like anyone even cares – if the allies really cared they would have saved us by now."

"They don't know, well, not the whole story at least," Reiner said. Again, he was giving information to Bertholdt that any normal German soldier would have withheld without batting an eyelash.

"They don't know what, exactly?" Bertholdt asked, "they're in the middle of a war with you, they must know what you're doing?"

"No, this is something that's being kept quiet among the axis, in fact, I'm certain that Italy isn't completely aware of what we're doing with the Jews. As far as they know, we're only putting them in ghettos and concentration camps to keep them out of the way. Nobody truly knows to what extent were going, and if they do, they pretend they don't to avoid causing any complications."

Bertholdt was quiet as he looked at Reiner, "you mean to say that you're committing mass genocide without the approval of other countries in the axis? This is something that you're doing on the Fuhrer's accord only?"

"Some other countries are aware."

"Who, Poland? That's because you already destroyed half of the population in it. You also just said that nobody knows the full story, so what's really going on here?"

Reiner didn't respond to Bertholdt's more than intense questioning this time around, he just stayed quiet and let Bertholdt say what he wanted to say. This was making headway, Bertholdt believed. A normal German soldier at the peak of his age would have snapped his neck for even mentioning the Fuhrer in any kind of critical way, and here Reiner was sitting down – expressionless – as he listened to what he had to say about the man he looked up to the most. Even as he accused Reiner and the rest of the German military of committing mass genocide, he stayed quiet and thoughtful.

This attitude was so unlike Bertholdt, only showing its face when he was pushed into a corner. And he was definitely in a corner, a corner that he would never hope to walk away from.

"Do you think if other countries found out that they would disagree with how you are treating the Jews?"

Reiner met his eyes, but didn't answer.

The way he was looking at him was answer enough.

"Doesn't that make you think that there's something wrong with what's going on here? Doesn't that make you think that the Fuhrer is trying to keep this away from prying eyes because he knows they would think - sorry - know that it's wrong?"

Silence.

"You're killing innocent people because some man said they were evil, that's as childish as a kindergarten fight," Bertholdt shook his head. "Where is the proof, Reiner, that says we do all of the things that the Fuhrer says we do?"

Reiner finally spoke up at this, his eyes intense, "you're proving it right now."

Bertholdt was taken aback, hoping that he hadn't gone too far and made Reiner go back to his old way of thinking, "what am I doing to prove his beliefs to you?"

"You're trying to deceive me, and persuade me to believe a lie," Reiner said, however what he said lacked conviction. He didn't seem to believe his own words, "you're a Jew, after all."

"Yes, I am a Jew," Bertholdt said as a he nodded his head, "and I and my people have been living amongst you for years and years without causing any damage to the world. Now, we're here being killed, and the world is turning into a cesspool of war and violence. Are you not seeing what I'm seeing? The world is being destroyed and damaged – your own people are being killed – because that man simply doesn't like what we believe in."

Again, Reiner was silent, except this time he didn't just shake his head, He stood up from his chair without another word and left the room.

Reiner didn't return for two days.

* * *

"Braun, tell the Jew he's allowed using the shower facilities today," the captain shouted down the hall as Reiner made his way into the cell of three elderly Jews.

"He's not in my care today," Reiner said.

"Well, he's in your care now" he said as he handed Reiner a stack of regular prison clothing, "make sure he showers."

Reiner looked at him cautiously, perfectly aware of his intentions, but nodded his head despite the protests welling up in his chest. He knew full well what the man was planning, and it made him feel sick inside to know that he would probably go through with it. And, if Reiner protested this time, he would lose rank and be shamed in front of his comrades. The captain would put up with many things, but being told what he could and couldn't do by an underling would cause extreme anger and in turn, anguish for Reiner and any other parties that got too involved in the matter.

However, Bertholdt would suffer the most.

The last thing Reiner needed was to start a fight, so he swallowed his pride and the rest of his feelings and brought the clothes to Bertholdt's room.

* * *

"Why would they allow me that?" Bertholdt asked after Reiner explained the situation to him.

"I don't know," Reiner said, a bald-faced lie.

"I don't want to shower," Bertholdt said, flicking one of the pages of his book. He knew full well why they wanted him to shower, and he believed that if he didn't go, maybe – just maybe – they wouldn't do horrible things to him. That was probably hoping for too much, though.

"It…" Reiner bit his bottom lip, conflicted with himself, "you don't have a choice, Bertholdt."

"I don't care," Bertholdt said, not taking his eyes of the book, "I'm not getting in there just so they can dirty me up again. What's the point?"

Reiner swallowed, so Bertholdt knew why they wanted him to wash.

"Bertholdt," Reiner said seriously, "please, just go."

Bertholdt looked up, "why?"

"They'll hurt you even worse if you don't, Bertholdt, please…"

"Why do you care?" Bertholdt asked as he watched Reiner's expressions change carefully. Bertholdt sighed softly, "besides, I'd rather they beat me than do _that_."

Reiner didn't know what to say to him to change his mind. He understood Bertholdt's conflicting feelings, and if he were in Bertholdt's position, he would probably be acting the same way. Anyone would take a beating over what his captain had planned. But, of course, Bertholdt didn't have a choice – neither did Reiner.

Reiner watched Bertholdt feign reading for a few more moments before he stood up from the chair, and without hesitation grabbed Bertholdt under the arms.

"What are you doing?" Bertholdt asked frantically, squirming in his hold.

"You won't listen to me, so I'm going to have to make you do as I say by force," Reiner gritted out as he tried to drag the taller man out of the cell. Bertholdt was a lot lighter than Reiner, however he was taller, and it made it awkward for Reiner to drag him. Bertholdt was squirming in his hold, but he wasn't trying too hard.

He gave up after only a few tugs.

Bertholdt knew that there was no point in fighting it; Reiner saw that in the way his cheeks lost their colour. He had resigned himself to his fate and soon went completely limp in Reiner's arms.

Bertholdt finally stood up after he realized that Reiner wasn't going to stop and walked behind him with his head down, again, looking incredibly small and pitiful despite being taller than Reiner. Reiner silently led Bertholdt to where the shower facilities were, passing by a few other soldiers who leered at Bertholdt, causing even more discomfort in him.

Somehow, Bertholdt coiled into himself and made himself ever smaller.

Only when they were in the showers did Bertholdt seem to become more comfortable.

Reiner put Bertholdt's clothes on the counter and patted them once, "you're clothes are here, and there are towels under the counter."

Bertholdt only nodded his head.

Reiner sighed softly and left the showers, however, before he closed the door behind himself he whispered something under his breath so low that Bertholdt wasn't completely sure he had heard it at all.

"_Es tut mir leid_"

* * *

Despite knowing what was coming next, Bertholdt was happy to finally be able to shower after so many long days of living in his own filth. He had been so dirty that the water sluicing down his skin and dropping onto the cement under his feet was stained a dark brown.

Bertholdt's skin was still dark, but when he washed off all of the silt and dirt that had built up after so long, he looked lighter. It had been so long since he'd seen the proper colour of his own skin that he was surprised by his own appearance.

Bertholdt sighed out loud under the spray, happy to have this brief moment of privacy. The warm water on his skin was like exstacy, and the steam rising up from the cool ground cleared his clogged nose and throat.

He hadn't felt this good in a long time.

Bertholdt just stood under the spray for a long time, looking up at the water and letting it drown his entire body. He knew that there would be a knock on the door soon, and that he would be told that his time was up, so he enjoyed it for as long as possible.

He wanted to enjoy being clean for as long as possible, because he would soon be dirty again.

Bertholdt shuddered at the thought, hugging his arms to his chest tight, as if that would do anything to stop what was about to happen or make him feel better.

However, instead of feeling comforted when he hugged his arms to his chest so tightly, he was instantly reminded of his family. He was reminded of the hugs he would receive when he returned home after school, or the hugs he got when he was successful with one of his art projects. He hadn't realized how much he had missed general physical contact until he had tried to embrace himself.

Bertholdt pressed his head up against the cement wall, letting the warm water rain down on his back.

* * *

When Bertholdt was escorted back into the room by Reiner - whose eyes were downcast and refused to meet his - he wasn't surprised to see that the bed had been changed and that there was more than one person waiting in his room.

Despite knowing that this was coming, it didn't stop Bertholdt from feeling sick to his stomach.

"What is this Jews name again, Braun?" the captain asked as he eyed Bertholdt up and down.

"Bertholdt Fubar," Reiner said.

"Hmm, he's a little lanky – and taller than I remember, but he should be fine," the man said with a grin. He patted the bed beside him, motioning for Bertholdt to join him.

Bertholdt swallowed hard but followed the orders immediately, he didn't want to add anymore unnecessary pain to what pain was already coming his way. Bertholdt sat down beside the captain, leaning himself as far away as possible.

Reiner was turning to leave the room, but he was stopped when the captain shouted a harsh command at him. "Stay."

Reiner froze on the spot.

"Stay and watch."

Reiner turned around slowly, eyeing the captain intensely, "no, I don't want to watch."

"You don't have a choice," he said with a grin. The captain pointed to the other two men in the room, and they grabbed Reiner by both shoulders, wrestling him down onto a chair at the far end of the room.

Reiner cursed and shoved the other two soldiers off of him, however, he didn't get up.

"Good," the captain said, "stay, enjoy the show."

"I'll sit here, but I won't watch. You can't force me to keep my eyes open."

"If you close your eyes at any moment, I'll cut them out of your head after I'm finished cutting them out of this Jews head," despite his joking smile it was very clear that the captain wasn't joking, even by the tone of his voice one could tell that he wouldn't hesitate to do what he had threatened.

Reiner's mouth twitched, he wanted so bad to speak against the captain but he couldn't. He would lose rank and be shamed. He needed to remember that as he watched – he couldn't speak out because he would lose rank and be shamed. Reiner needed to remember that one Jew was not worth the destruction of a lifetime's worth of work and effort.

At least, that was what Reiner thought until he watched the Captain lift Bertholdt's shirt over his head and push him to the bed without missing a beat, all while staring Bertholdt directly in the eyes.

Reiner bit down on his bottom lip to stop the shout that wanted to make its way out, the scream he wanted to let out to tell the captain to stop. And to make matters worse, the look of absolute terror on Bertholdt's face made Reiner want to lose it. Reiner could never imagine – could never hope to imagine – just what was going through Bertholdt's head, just what he was feeling at that moment as the captain touched him against his will.

He wondered how Bertholdt felt knowing that he was going to die. Knowing that this would be his last memories was no way for any human being to leave the Earth.

Reiner clenched his fists as he watched the captain shrug down Bertholdt's pants, and before he could even process his thoughts, he stood up and shouted for him to stop at the top of his lungs, causing everyone in the room to jump in surprise. Even the captain himself seemed surprised at Reiner's sudden violent outburst.

The captain sat back on his haunches at this, eyeing Reiner carefully, "so you really care about this Jew enough to endanger your rank."

Reiner didn't respond, he only stood there with what he believed to be his most intimidating face he had.

"Fine, take him away to one of the cells to think about his actions for a few days," the captain said with a wave of his hand before he turned back to Bertholdt. "The General will deal with him when he gets back."

The two soldiers who were previously standing behind Reiner unmoving stepped forward and grabbed him under each arm before pulling him toward the cells exit.

"Hey, wait," Reiner said in a panic as he realized that the captain wasn't leaving with him. The whole idea was to cause a ruckus in hopes that the captain would leave Bertholdt alone, but it was clear to Reiner that he meant to finish the job whether or not Reiner interrupted or not.

He expected this.

"Just because you protested doesn't mean I'll suddenly stop, Reiner, don't be an idiot," the captain chuffed without even looking back up at Reiner. "This is to teach you a lesson."

The doors slammed shut in front of Reiner. 

* * *

Reiner could only sit and listen – despite all his efforts to drown out any sound – to Bertholdt's wails and screams as the captain did what he wished with him. He could only sit and listen for hours as Bertholdt cried for help, for his family, and at one point for someone to kill him.

Reiner knew that the captain had put him in the cell only a few steps away just so he could hear what was going on, and that only proved to make him angrier about the entire situation.

When it was finally over, when the wails ebbed off to nothings but soft whimpers, Reiner realized that he had dug his nails into the skin of his legs to the point where he had made himself bleed through the fabric.

He didn't know what he was more angry about – about Bertholdt being violated so cruelly, or about why he felt so strongly for the Jew.

Reiner looked up when he heard the door to his cell opening, revealing the captain and his smirking face. Had his ankle not been shackled to the floor, he would have lunged at him without even thinking about the consequences.

"You're going to stay in here for a while to think about your actions, and while you do so I'm going to contact the General about what's been going on with you. You are going to need to be re-educated, Reiner."

Reiner bit his lip to keep the words that threatened to spill out back in his throat.

"I know that you won't be reprimanded too strongly, Reiner, but that Jew is in for a world of hell when the General realizes what's been going on. What I just did doesn't even cover half of the pain he's in for."

The Captain left without another word. 

* * *

**A/N: Sorry this chapter took so long, but I was out of the province for a few days visiting my university with my parents! There won't be anymore interruptions from now until next month, so chapter updates should be regular from now on.**


	4. Chapter 4

The night after the captain had put Reiner into the cell beside Bertholdt's, alarms were sounded that had sent everyone at the base into a shouting frenzy. For hours and hours Reiner could hear boot heels clapping against the cement, heavy breathing, and commands being shouted at people outside of his door. No one bothered with informing Reiner about what was going on, but Reiner had already come to his own conclusions about what was causing such an uproar.

Germany being attacked directly was the only thing capable of creating such a panic within the ranks.

Reiner fully expected his captain to run into his cell to get his attention eventually, but long hours went by without the captain even showing his face in the cell. It was only when it was hitting dawn again that the captain walked into his cell, trying his best to conceal the look of terror that clearly wanted to show through.

He looked Reiner up and down, sizing him up and trying to make him feel little even at such a horrible time.

"Most of us are needed on the front," the captain said, "Hamburg's been bombed by the allies."

"What?" Reiner shouted, completely forgetting about the shackle around his ankle and standing up, putting a hard strain on it. They had been at a stalemate with the allies for so long that Reiner didn't expect such a large scale attack out of nowhere.

"Hamburg has been bombed, we're needed on the front," the captain said again as if it weren't a serious blow to the entire German army - as if he were trying to convince himself. "But you, Reiner, you're going to be staying here while we get the General."

"Why?" Reiner asked, already knowing the answer to the question he had just posed.

"Because if you can't kill a simple Jew, Reiner, then we can't trust that you will kill anyone when the time comes. You've lost sight of your goal."

"That's ridiculous, I want to protect my people, I have to protect my pe-"

"If you wanted to protect your people, Reiner," the captain started, voice pitched low despite the howling voices just beyond the cell, "then you should have obeyed my orders and treated that Jew just like any other Jew – not like a human being."

The captain's eyes were reduced to slits, "do you realize that it's that Jew - and all the other Jews around the world - that have caused all of this destruction? It's their fault that Hamburg's been bombed!" The captain got so close to Reiner that his face was only inches away as he shouted at him.

Reiner bowed his head, he realized that his actions went against all that he had learned, but despite that he still felt bad about hurting the Jews - Bertholdt in particular. However, his questions weren't even about Bertholdt at this point, it was about everyone; every Jew that they had slaughtered or put in Ghettos and concentration camps.

It felt wrong, and Reiner didn't like that feeling.

"You're going to be left here with lieutenant Klein while we leave for the next base over," the captain said with a sigh, "we'll be back in less than a day with the General, then he'll decide from there whether you're fit for the front lines, and what punishment the Jew will get."

Reiner kept quiet; it wasn't the time or the place to start arguing about Bertholdt. Germany had just been dealt heavy damage by the allied forces, there were other things to worry about.

"Fine," Reiner said with the nod of his head.

"Good," the captain said with a smile, "if you continue being this docile, Braun, I may even consider leaving out some of the details when telling the captain about your feelings toward the Jew." The captain turned tail and left the room, holding the door open with his foot before leaving, "You may just keep your rank, Braun."

Despite feeling horrible about the situation he was in, Reiner couldn't help the joy that spread through him at the idea of keeping his rank. He had done so much to wrong the captain, and yet the captain was still willing to give him a second chance.

Reiner continued looking at the door even after the captain left.

* * *

It was only later on in the night, as dawn was arriving, that Reiner realized that he was falling for the captain's trap. The captain was trying to make him forget about Bertholdt's situation and only focus on his, he was trying to take him back to their side by promising him his rank and pride in exchange for Bertholdt's well-being.

It was true that Reiner was busy panicking about what was going on in Germany – his hometown – but that didn't stop him from thinking about Bertholdt. The captain casually told him about Bertholdt's punishment, and then continued to tell him about how he may be able to keep his rank. He was putting a huge decision on Reiner's shoulders, and simultaneously threatening him.

Reiner sat up from the palette bed he was sitting on and ran his hands through his short blonde hair.

It was sick, it was sick to think that if he let Bertholdt be harmed, and that if he pretended nothing had happened and continued on with trapping Jews and putting them through torture that he would be given the chance to maintain his rank.

It made him feel sick inside to think that his rank and place in the military would be determined by the murder and rape of an innocent human being.

_A human being._

Reiner sighed aloud and put his head in his hands. When he thought about it, he didn't really have any other choice about what he could and couldn't do. There was no way that he could prevent what was about to happen to Bertholdt - or any of the Jews in the base for that matter - so he had no other choice but to do what was expected of him whether he liked it or not.

He lied to himself and told himself that if he didn't see, if he didn't know exactly what was going on, then he would be fine with Bertholdt's death. He would be OK with it.

He told himself that, and yet just hearing Bertholdt crying had been enough to make him question his own place in the military – it had been enough to make his question his own Fuhrer, the axis, and his entire countries place in the world.

Reiner was surprised when the door to his cell opened up and a none too familiar face peered around the corner at him. He was wearing a well kept uniform, and his pale skin gleaned in he moonlight filtering through the bars on the window in Reiner's cell.

"Reiner Braun," the man called from the door, "I'm lieutenant Klein, I've been left to watch over you while the captain is gone."

Reiner 'aha'd' silently, finally realizing who the man was. He hadn't worked directly with him, but he had seen him around the base on more than one occasion. From what Reiner had heard, he was a lieutenant that was incredibly reliable and who would no doubt be receiving a promotion as soon as the general came to do one of his routine inspections at the base.

However, it wasn't the man's rank that interested Reiner, it was the keys he could clearly hear jingling in his pockets.

"Hmm," was all Reiner responded with, losing track of his thoughts and looking at nothing in particular.

Reiner couldn't believe the thoughts that were going through his head, he couldn't believe that he was thinking of deceiving his own captain. Deceiving his own country.

"I brought you food," the man said with a quick shrug of his shoulders, he looked worried, Reiner could tell just by the way his teeth sunk into his bottom lip every time he finished saying something to him. He didn't bite hard enough to break the skin, but hard enough to leave angry white marks on the dark pink flesh.

Reiner came to his decision in that moment.

Reiner pretended to be stuck looking off into the distance – spacing out again – so that the soldier would let his guard down and get closer to him. The table beside Reiner was close enough so that he could reach out for him if he decided to put his plate down next to him.

"Ugh, the captain wasn't kidding," Reiner heard the man muttering under his breath, "you really are out of your fucking mind for that Jew. You're as useless as them right now."

Reiner bit back the anger that was pooling inside him at being addressed with such cruel words.

Was that how it felt to live in the life of a Jew? To be addressed so cruelly…

The soldier finally walked forward, thinking that Reiner was completely off in his own world after he didn't respond to being slandered by him. Reiner was a proud man, after all, it was strange to see him not reacting where his pride was concerned.

"I'm going to leave your food next to you, Jew lover, so make sure you don't drool over it while you're thinking about that dirty Jew in there," the soldier walked close and leaned over to put the plate onto the table next to him, but before he even got the chance to put the plate down Reiner reached across the table and just barely got a tight hold of one of his wrists.

"Oh sh-" the man started, unable to finish as Reiner threw him to the ground on his back, causing the table and food to fall over, dirtying the previously clean cement.

"Keys," Reiner said in a tone that one wouldn't dare test.

"You idiot, you're really going this far for that stupid J-"

"Stop it," Reiner said, gritting his teeth, "now give me the keys to cells and to my shackle."

"No," the soldier said despite all of the pain that was being inflicted upon him.

That was what they had been taught, after all. No matter what, you don't give in to the enemy.

This soldier saw Reiner as the enemy; Reiner was now Germany's enemy.

The dread and anguish that pooled up inside him, along with all the anger and regret were too much for him to bear. Without even considering his actions any longer, Reiner twisted until the soldiers wrist snapped clean in half.

Reiner wouldn't go back on the decision he had made.

It was a clean break, and it would heal without any problems. Reiner just needed to make a point, and he would only be taken seriously if he took drastic measures.

The soldier screamed and kicked at the cement ground with his heavy leather boots, tears welling up in the corners of his eyes from the intense paid and - no doubt - the anger at being so careless around Reiner.

"Now hand me the key," Reiner said with a snarl, "or I'll break the other one too."

After composing himself as much as possible, the soldier reached into his pocket with a shaking hand, pulling out a rusted, silver key chain with five small keys that gleaned in the moonlight. Reiner grabbed it out of his hand and shoved it into the shackle around his ankle, releasing himself from his binds. Reiner stood up from where he was sitting on the ground beside the soldier and shifted the shackle onto the lieutenants ankle.

"You're an idiot, Braun," the man said after he had been successfully shackled to the ground. "You could have had everything, the name and rank, and you're giving it up for that fucking J-"

"I'm going to get them all out," Reiner said, just loud enough for the soldier to hear.

"What?" He asked, despite knowing exactly what Reiner had said.

"I'm going to let all of them out, they don't deserve to be here," Reiner repeated, more to himself than to the lieutenant that was still laying on the cold cement ground.

Reiner left the room and slammed the door shut, leaving behind and enraged German soldier that would no doubt take his place in rank despite his blunder.

Reiner would do it, he would let them all out.

Reiner would help the Jews and change Bertholdt's harsh fate.

* * *

**A/N: I'm sorry for the short chapter, but it's getting really busy around my house! Hope you guys liked the chapter, expect another one really soon! : )**


	5. Chapter 5

With keys in hand, Reiner rushed to the rooms of the other Jews imprisoned in the base despite the urge to check on Bertholdt first. He needed to get them out first, and let them run, before he took off himself.

They wouldn't trust him if he had an injured Bertholdt with him, they needed to leave before them.

Reiner unlocked the doors and quickly explained himself to the few Jews left inside the base. They were confused at first, and cautious, but they ran as fast as they could despite the worry at the back of their minds. It was probable that they thought that Reiner was playing a cruel prank and was planning on shooting them down as they ran; it was a game that the captain had enjoyed playing more than once.

Reiner started realizing over time that they weren't falling for the trick - they knew what was going to happen to them. In their minds, despite the odds, they believed that they could escape. They wanted to believe that they could escape.

Reiner knew that the likelihood of the Jews being caught was very high, but he knew from his talks with Bertholdt that even the slightest bit of freedom would relieve them of some of their sadness. Deep down, even the Jews knew that they would be caught eventually - they all knew that.

If Reiner could lighten that heavy burden, even in the slightest, then he would do his best to do so.

Reiner figured being gunned down by a soldier would be better than the things they would have been subjected to in the concentration camps anyways. He wasn't fully aware of what went on in the concentration camps, but he'd heard rumours, and none of them were good.

When the Jews finally left the base, the sound of their bare feet hitting the cement silenced, Reiner made his way to Bertholdt's room.

Though Reiner knew that they didn't have much time to escape, he still moved slowly – afraid of what he would see when he opened the door. No doctors had been sent to tend to him, so there was a good chance that Bertholdt wasn't in good shape – he had already been frail and unhealthy to begin with.

Reiner sidled past his old cell with the lieutenant still lying on the ground screaming profanities at him and stood in front of Bertholdt's door. He reached out for the handle, and sweat started to form on his brow – more so because of his nerves than because of the incredible humidity in the base. He stopped his hands a few times out of fear, but he eventually found it in himself to turn the lever and enter the cell. There was no time to spare.

He didn't bother calling out Bertholdt's name beforehand because he probably wouldn't even have answered him, he was probably too angry. His pain was partially Reiner's fault, after all. Reiner had been the one to catch him. Though he eventually would have been found out and caught by one of the soldiers at the base, it had been Reiner that had taken him down.

Reiner had sealed Bertholdt's fate, but despite that, he wanted to somehow save him from his inevitable end.

No matter how difficult the task, Reiner was determined to save him.

Reiner entered the pitch black room - the candle sitting on the bedside table had long since burned out - and because of cell's position not even moonlight filtered into the room. As Reiner's eyes adjusted to the darkness, he quickly realized that Bertholdt wasn't in his bed, but underneath it.

Reiner felt his heart seize, but despite the worry rising in his chest he rushed over to Bertholdt's side. There was no point in standing there twiddling his thumbs as he imagined what was wrong – he needed to know what was wrong with him immediately.

Reiner knelt down beside the bed and reached his arm out, patting Bertholdt down to feel for any serious injuries before he finally happened upon a thick mat of silky hair. Just from patting him down Reiner could tell that Bertholdt was still breathing, however his breaths were laboured and coming in short bursts. There was clearly something wrong with him.

"Bertholdt," Reiner shouted under the bed so his voice would drown out Lieutenant Klein's. When Bertholdt didn't answer, Reiner tried a second time and got nothing out of him.

Reiner sat back on his haunches, panicked. It had been almost two days since the captain had decided to torture Bertholdt, and there was no saying exactly what he had done to him. If he happened to have opened a wound on him, it was possible that the wound had become infected.

There was no time to spare.

Reiner reached under the bed and grabbed Bertholdt by his shoulders, pulling him out from under the bed with as much care as he could given the circumstance.

As soon as he had pulled him free and had his arms around him, Reiner knew that there was something wrong with Bertholdt - his suspicions were confirmed. His breathing was shallow, his skin was cold, and he was completely limp in Reiner's arms. Reiner grabbed Bertholdt from under his knees and carried him out of the building. There was no point in trying to get him to walk, Bertholdt was completely despondent.

When they were outside of the humid building, and Reiner could finally see, he put Bertholdt down on the wet grass so he could see what was wrong from him. As he checked him over, Reiner didn't see any serious external wounds sole for some bruising from where the Captain had held him down. The most visible bruises were the deep purple ones around Bertholdt's throat, and the matching bruises on his upper thighs.

Reiner felt sick to his stomach when he saw them.

If he had been infected – which Reiner was certain he had been – then he knew that the wound had been inflicted internally. It was nothing Reiner could treat, and the only doctors in the vicinity were Polish doctors kept solely for the purpose of treating wounded German soldiers.

Reiner cursed and spit as he pounded his fists against the ground beside Bertholdt, completely lost for what to do. He couldn't treat Bertholdt without antibiotics, and he needed to be looked at by a professional to treat the wound. There was nothing he could do for him.

How cruel, that he would do everything in his power to help Bertholdt, and have it be all for naught in the end. To have the man die from a simple infection.

Then it hit Reiner, as he watched Bertholdt's chest rise and fall shallowly.

The Polish doctors would only take German soldiers.

"Please hang on, Bertholdt, I'm going to get you help," Reiner pushed himself off of the ground, batting at the grass stains on his knees as he rushed back into the base where the Lieutenant was still cursing his name. Reiner followed the curses and entered the room for the second time, despite not wanting to have to face the Lieutenant again.

"I'm sorry," Reiner said without any true feelings, and made his way toward the Lieutenant.

"What are you doing?" The Lieutenant asked, unconsciously backing up and away from Reiner as he approached him. He probably believed that Reiner was going to kill him.

"I didn't have anything to do with what happened to that Jew, Braun, I swear on my life," the Lieutenant shouted at him, backing up until his back hit the palette bed with a loud thud.

Reiner ignored his protests and stopped in front of the Lieutenant, ordering him to stand up in front of him.

The soldier rose to his feet without question, holding his hands in front of his chest, trying to tell Reiner that he meant no harm. However, Reiner wasn't even paying that any mind, as he was too busy sizing the Lieutenant up.

"Take your clothes off," Reiner said simply.

The Lieutenant was quiet for a moment, mouth gaping as he considered what Reiner was asking of him. "No, no, no, no, if you want to exact revenge for what happened to the Jew, take it out on the one that did it to him, not me. I swear, I had nothing to do with what the Captain did to him!"

Reiner rolled his eyes, realizing what the man thought Reiner was about to do to him. In no mood to be arguing back and forth with the Lieutenant, Reiner reached both of his hands out and ripped the shirt the man was wearing apart, causing a denizen of buttons to scatter about the floor. The buttons didn't matter, as long as he had the uniform it was enough.

The man was a little smaller than Bertholdt height wise, but the uniform would still fit him, that was all they needed – exact measurements weren't important.

Reiner took little time to strip the man down to nothing but his britches, leaving the man there shivering despite the humidity inside the base. He would be fine, only his pride had been damaged.

As Reiner piled the clothes up and gathered them into his arms, the Lieutenant looked at him questioningly, as if he expected more. Reiner didn't bother explaining himself and left to find Bertholdt. Besides that, he didn't want the Lieutenant to know what he was planning in fear that he would tell the Captain and he would find them before they had any time to flee.

Reiner was already running on borrowed time.

Reiner ran outside to see Bertholdt exactly where he had left him, except for the fact that he had somehow managed to roll himself over onto his side.

Reiner ran to his side and knelt down, shaking his shoulder in hopes of getting a response from him. He was lucky this time as Bertholdt finally responded, however it wasn't very clear what he was trying to say. The only thing Reiner could truly make out of what he said was his own name.

"I'm here," Reiner said, clasping one of Bertholdt's hands in his own, giving it a reassuring squeeze. "I'm going to get you out of here, Bertholdt. I promise I'll get you out of here. So please, just hang in there for a little longer. "

* * *

Reiner took one of the keys for a kubelwagen off of the keyring he had stolen from Lieutenant Klein and searched for the right one. It only took him a few turns as most of them had been taken out, and on his third try he was finally blessed with a steady, humming roar from the engine. Reiner had never been more grateful for that awful sound in his life.

Reiner left the keys in and trudged over to Bertholdt's side, picking him up off of the ground and bringing him to the car where he unceremoniously stripped him out of his dirty clothes. Reiner knew that Bertholdt would hate the idea in being dressed up in the uniform of a German soldier - the one thing he resented the most - but he had no other choice. If he wanted to get Bertholdt help and not get caught, he needed to do it. He knew that it would be difficult to convince the doctors, however, because Bertholdt wouldn't have a file.

Reiner was convincing enough, however, and since word of his affection for the Jew hadn't been passed around too much, he would probably be able to get away with his plan - if only by the skin of his teeth.

The only problem they would have would be getting away from occupied territory.

Poland was completely occupied – surrounded from top to bottom - the chances of them getting away unscathed would be nearly impossible. The fact that the General and the Captain would be hunting them down would be another thing for them to consider. People chasing them with such a high rank would have the best intel, and any place they decided to stay wouldn't be safe. Even a box under a bridge wouldn't be safe enough for them.

_A life on the run isn't a life, but an existence._

Reiner pounded his hands on the steering wheel when he finally had Bertholdt settled beside him. He truly hadn't thought through his actions, but there was no going back from the damage he had done.

Not only had Reiner attacked Lieutenant Klein and stripped him down to nothing but his underwear, but he had stolen all of his keys, released all the Jews that they were hiding in the base, and dressed Bertholdt up as a German soldier so he could get him treatment for a wound that the Captain had purposely inflicted on him. Reiner had committed the ultimate betrayal, and he was about to do even worse.

If Reiner was caught, he would be executed along with Bertholdt.

"Reiner."

Reiner was broken from his uneasy thoughts when he heard Bertholdt finally speak clearly from beside him, however the voice sounded so different to Reiner. He was so used to Bertholdt's gentle, and soft voice; now it was hoarse and broken – his throat raw from screaming and crying. Reiner was having a hard time just listening to him speak.

"Bertholdt," Reiner said, looking away from the road to meet Bertholdt's eyes.

"Reiner, where are we going?" Bertholdt asked, a hint of fear in his voice, "are we going to the trains?"

"No," Reiner said quickly, "no, we're not going to trains – we're never going to the trains."

"Wha-"

"I'm taking you away, I'm going to get you out of here," Reiner said, even having a hard time believing his own words.

At this, Bertholdt seemed to become more alert. Reiner watched from the corner of his eyes as Bertholdt looked down at himself and realized that he was wearing a German uniform, his eyes shining with panic as he put everything together in his mind.

"Reiner, no," Bertholdt said, grabbing the wheel without even thinking about what he was doing. "Reiner, take me back, they'll kill you!"

"It's too late," Reiner said, nudging Bertholdt's hand as gently as he could off of the steering wheel.

"No, bring me back and put me back in the cell," Bertholdt shouted. However, the shout he let out seemed to cause some pain, and his wheezed and folded in on himself.

"Bertholdt," Reiner started, slowing down so he could see what was wrong with the man.

There were tears in the corners of Bertholdt's eyes, and whether they were from his anger with Reiner or from the pain he was going through, it was difficult to say. "Reiner," Bertholdt said, "why would you do this?"

That was it, that was the question Reiner didn't know the answer to.

Why was he doing all of this for Bertholdt? Why?

"You'll be killed, Reiner," Bertholdt said, finally looking up from the floor of the kubelwagen, "you'll lose everything because of this, do you know how serious this is?"

"I know how serious this is," Reiner said with a nod, "I knew what I was getting into as soon as I tricked the Lieutenant watching me."

"How did you get out of there?" Bertholdt asked, "the Captain must ha-"

At the mention of the Captain's name, Reiner finally remembered what else was going on in Germany – it had been bombed severely by the allies. He had been so caught up in his plan that he had forgotten what had happened.

"Germany's been bombed," Reiner said, picking up speed again, "they left me because they felt that I couldn't perform my duties, and they left a well respected Lieutenant to watch over me and the rest of the Jews in the base."

"Oh God," Bertholdt said, slapping a hand to his forehead, "Reiner, how could you do something so…"

Bertholdt's voice ebbed off until it was almost nothing.

"Bertholdt?" Reiner asked, taking his eyes off of the dark road yet again.

Bertholdt was bent over, clenching his stomach and letting out short, pained gasps.

"We're almost there," Reiner said, "I'm going to get you better, and then I'm going to get you out of Poland. I promise."

* * *

A/N: Well, I've plotted out everything right down to the last moment, so I should be done by chapter 9! Hopefully I can have this finished before the middle of next month!

Thanks for reading!


	6. Chapter 6

Bertholdt woke up to a completely unfamiliar setting. The walls around him were made of solid logs, not cement, and the room smelled of pine rather than the pungent dirt smell he had grown so used to. Bertholdt looked up, watching as a dim morning light filtered into the room and painted golden stripes across the sterile white sheets covering him.

He wasn't in the base anymore.

Bertholdt sat up quickly, and in doing so caused a dull, aching pain to rip through his lower back. He hissed but didn't lie back down, too interested in his surroundings to do so.

Looking around he confirmed that he wasn't in the base anymore, and it certainly couldn't have been a concentration camp considering the fact that the sheets that covered him were still white. Bertholdt wanted to get up and look around, but he knew that he was already treading on thin ice. He didn't know where he was yet, snooping around would be a bad idea.

Bertholdt sighed and fell back into his pillows, hissing at the sharp pain it caused him. It seemed that he was still feeling some pain, but it wasn't quite as intense as it was to begin with. He could move now.

"Bertholdt," there it was, that familiar voice that he had grown so inexplicably fond of. Bertholdt turned his head to the side, watching carefully as Reiner walked up to his side and knelt beside his bed.

Bertholdt was still so groggy from waking up that he still wasn't sure of what was going on, all he knew was that Reiner was sitting beside him with a gentle smile on his face, the sun was bright, and the air was cool on his heated skin. Bertholdt's world was completely at peace. For the first time in a long time, he didn't feel the need to run away.

"Go back to sleep, Bertholdt."

He hadn't realized how tired he was until Reiner told him, and before he knew it he was drifting out of consciousness.  
_  
"This must be heaven."_

* * *

"He will be fine in a few days, Lieutenant Schumacher*, he just needs plenty of rest. I'd advise you to leave him here for a few days to heal completely, however."

"I'm afraid we don't have the time to spare," Reiner answered the doctor quickly. "We're needed on the front immediately. I'm certain that you know what happened in Hamburg."

"Yes, I am aware of what happened, and what I'm trying to get across is that a wounded soldier would be of no help on the front lines. You can go, I'm sure he can find his way on his own when he gets better."

"We're down to our last few, and it's just ground patrol and clean-up, he can handle that much."

The doctor sighed, "he isn't fine, he sustained some bad wounds."

"I don-"

"I'm sorry, but I didn't quite catch what you said when you first walked in," the doctor said, cutting Reiner off, "how exactly did he get those wounds?"

"I already told you, another soldier stationed at our base wasn't in his right mind and took advantage of him," Reiner knew what the doctor was hinting at, but stuck with his story. The last thing he needed was for the doctor to contact his Captain to ask what had happened.

"That soldier didn't happen to be you, correct?"

"No, we've already discussed this."

The doctor sighed and looked at Bertholdt, scratching the light stubble under his chin, "I'm going to have to ask you to at least let him stay the night, we can't risk putting him in danger - or worse yet - put everyone else in danger. You're going to have to find a way to manage without him for the time being."

Reiner knew that he had no chance of cracking the doctor, so he nodded his head in agreement with him so he would leave.

When the doctor left the room after checking over Bertholdt again, Reiner was finally left alone with him again. He had woken up at dawn, but he had still been dazed and a little out of sorts, so Reiner hadn't gotten a good chance to talk to him properly. Had Bertholdt been fully awake and not still full of antibiotics, he would have made their escape then, but they still had some time on their hands if Reiner played it carefully.

Reiner sat down beside Bertholdt's bed and watched him for a long time. Reiner watched his chest rise and fall gently, cringing every time he caught a glimpse of Bertholdt's protruding ribs. He tried not to think about how emaciated his body was and instead focused on his face, the only thing on him that didn't look terribly thin. Under normal circumstances Reiner would have felt strange watching someone sleep, but at the moment he was too concerned about him to even care about what it would look like to anyone else.

Reiner cringed when he watched Bertholdt roll onto his side, lips trembling from the pain it caused him.

Bertholdt had the beginnings of an infection, but it was the wound itself that was taking a toll on his already frail body.

Reiner sighed and put his head in his hands.

They both needed to leave before the afternoon, so if Bertholdt didn't wake up Reiner would be forced to take him anywat. He knew it was unfortunate that the doctor didn't agree with letting Bertholdt go early, as he would probably contact the Captain as soon as he realized they were gone. The green Kubelwaggen was all too familiar around Poland – they wouldn't go undetected in such a well-known vehicle.

"Shit," Reiner said, grabbing a tight hold of the bars securing Bertholdt's bed.

Even though the movement was small, so gentle that it wouldn't have woken even the lightest of sleepers, Bertholdt's eyelids slowly started to flutter open – it was the second time they opened, and Reiner hoped that they would stay open this time.

"Bertholdt," Reiner started, not bothering to wait for him to completely wake up, "I don't have time to explain, but we need to get out of here right now."

Bertholdt – of course – was still sleep dazed and barely able to comprehend what Reiner was saying. The only thing Bertholdt managed to do was lift one of his eyebrows in question, but otherwise he remained silent.

Reiner didn't bother explaining a second time and lifted Bertholdt out of the bed so only the tips of his feet were touching the ground. He thought that if Bertholdt felt the cold ground under his feet, It would help him become more alert.

"Come on, Bertholdt, just follow me and don't make any noise? Did you get that?" Reiner put one of Bertholdt's arms around his shoulders and began walking – dragging – him out of the entryway. The two of them were almost to the exit when Bertholdt hissed.

"Bertholdt?" Reiner questioned, slowing the pace as he tried to look under Bertholdt's fringe and at his face.

Bertholdt was awake, that was for certain, but he clearly wasn't feeling very comfortable. Reiner hadn't even thought about his injury, and here he was trying to make Bertholdt walk on unsteady legs with a still sore body.

To avoid wasting any more time and causing Bertholdt anymore unnecessary pain, Reiner lifted him off of the ground by his hip and carried him outside of the building like that, only letting him down when they reached the kubelwagen.

"Get in," Reiner said quickly, jumping into the driver's seat and turning the key in the ignition as soon as Bertholdt had cautiously gotten into the car. The pain showed on his face as soon as Reiner hit the dirt road, but he didn't complain despite it.

Reiner knew that he was leaving late, and he knew that they were probably already being trailed, but he had wanted to leave Bertholdt with enough time to recuperate from the injury he had sustained, but, even with the extra few hours, it was clear that the damage was still very heavy and not completely healed.

"Where are we going?" Bertholdt asked after the pain eased slightly and his had muscles relaxed some.

"I do-"

It was at that moment that Reiner felt that something was off, even with the sunlight warming his back and baking the seats of the car, he knew that something was wrong. Reiner took one quick glance into the rear view mirror and realized what exactly was wrong with their situation. There were two all too familiar kubelwagens' driving up behind them at the fastest speed they could travel.

They were trapped.

"Bertholdt, put your head down, now!" Reiner said, even though he had already shoved Bertholdt's head down without any preamble. Bertholdt let out a heavy grunt from the harsh action, but otherwise did as Reiner told him and kept his head low.

Almost as soon as Reiner had pushed his head down a bullet whizzed directly over Bertholdt's lowered head. It would have been a clean shot if Reiner hadn't acted so quickly.

Reiner knew that they wouldn't dare shoot him, no matter how angry they were, they wanted to humiliate him and make him suffer, not give him the easy way out with a bullet. They also knew that Reiner had become attached to the Jew, and that shooting and killing Bertholdt would be the easiest way to upset Reiner.

"Don't lift your head, Bertholdt, no matter what you do, and no matter what you hear," Reiner said, finally releasing his hold and removing his hand from the top of Bertholdt's head. "I don't think they'll kill me, but if they do, I want you to take control of the wheel and drive away. No matter what it takes, you can't let them get a hold of you. Do you understand? If you keep driving this way, in three nights you could make it to the border of Poland."

Reiner knew that it was pointless, and that if he died Bertholdt would most certainly die as well. Not only would the kubelwagen run out of gas before then, but Bertholdt was just a simple man with a bad injury who had no prior military training. However, Reiner wanted to believe that Bertholdt would make it one way or another.

Bertholdt let out a sound that Reiner couldn't quite discern because of all the noise that the soldiers behind them were making , but he knew that Bertholdt understood what he had said to him. That was all Reiner needed to know.

Reiner could hear the Captain calling out to him from behind him, but he chose not to look back, pretending not to hear anything; Reiner didn't want to see the faces of the people that he was considering killing.

Reiner fingered the gun strapped into the centre console while he internally battled with his own consciousness.

Was it worth it – was it truly worth it – to murder his Captain, and all the other soldiers he had brought along with him all for the sake of one Jewish man? One Jewish man that probably hated him and everything he stood for – and justifiably so.

Would what he was about to do truly make a difference? Would what he was doing truly make anyone think differently about what was going on in Europe, and about how the war was playing itself out?

Bertholdt had convinced him – had shown him the light – but would it be possible to do that for all of the soldiers in the German military? If he escaped, and that was if he escaped, would he be able to tell other people outside of Poland and Germany about what was going on with the Jewish population? Would they even believe him? Would they just think that he was some military flunky that wanted to sully the German military's name because he was kicked out for some reason or another?

Not only that, but the idea was already farfetched to begin with. Someone who hadn't seen it playing out in front of their own eyes would have a hard time believing what he was saying.

"Pull the fucking car over, Braun, this isn't a fucking joke anymore! Hand over that dirty Jew and we'll lighten your punishment!" The Captain called out, finally making Reiner realize why he had done all that he had done in the first place. It was that kind of talk – that kind of attitude – that made Reiner yank the gun out of the strap in the centre console without blinking.

"Bertholdt," Reiner started, "take the wheel, and keep the car going straight, the road doesn't turn out for another long while so don't worry."

Bertholdt finally spoke, shouting above the roaring winds and screaming soldiers, "Reiner, no, this is putting you in danger. Please, just hand me over, it would make this so much easier on you."

"Take the wheel, Bertholdt," Reiner nearly shouted into his face, "our lives depend on this, so please, take the wheel so I can stop all of this from happening."

Bertholdt looked at him carefully for a second, and Reiner could tell that he was considering reminding Reiner that he would die, but listened to him despite the heavy protests inside his mind. Bertholdt grabbed the wheel of the kubelwagen from Reiner's hands, and before Bertholdt even had a firm grip, he turned around and shot several rounds at the soldiers behind him, silencing a handful of soldiers behind them.

However, the most important bullet that he had shot was the fifth one – the one that had gotten the captain in the left eye, causing the kubelwagen he was commandeering to drive off of the road and flip several times into a grassy plain that was browning from the constant rain that was drowning Poland out.

As Reiner watched the kubelwagen flip out of view, he couldn't believe his own eyes. He had just killed his Captain, the man who had literally brought him from the ground up. Reiner had just killed him knowing full well what the consequences of his actions would be. The next few bullets came out of his gun in what seemed like slow motion, he watched as the bullets hit each driver and caused them to veer off the road with the other various passengers.

Reiner believed that the only reason he had been able to take them out was because they hadn't expected him to be quite so adamant about saving Bertholdt from the concentration camps. They believed that Reiner would eventually decide that his own life was more important than Bertholdt's life. Reiner himself couldn't quite believe just how far he had gone to save him, it was testament to how much Reiner knew about himself.

"OK," Reiner said, letting out a quick huff of air, "I think that's it, we have them now, I think we're safe." Reiner was saying this more to confirm it to himself, rather than to Bertholdt. It was true, they were safe for the moment, but Reiner had just done something that would now have both he and Bertholdt killed. Reiner committed an ultimate treason against the German military, and the Fuhrer himself.

"Reiner," Bertholdt said, his voice intoned with absolute shock, "Reiner, do you realize what you just did; Reiner, what you did at the base was bad enough, but you just killed a dozen people. A dozen of your own people!"

"They would have killed you," Reiner said, matter-of-factly.

"Yes, Reiner, but you just raised the death toll. Now they won't just kill me, but they'll kill you too. How could you just sign your life away like that?" Bertholdt grabbed Reiner's forearm and shook as hard as he could muster with all of the pain coursing through his still weak and weary body.

Reiner watched as tears glazed his eyes and threatened to spill over his reddened eyelids, "why would you do all of that, why would you do all of that just for me?"

"Because, Bertholdt," Reiner started, finally realizing what it was that had caused Reiner to begin rebelling in the first place, "because you showed me that what's going on in the world right now is wrong, and that the way your people are being treated is unacceptable. You taught me that everyone deserves a chance, and that a race or a religion doesn't make an evil person. A person's actions determine whether they are evil or not, and those people behind us were evil; the Fuhrer is evil."

Reiner gripped the steering wheel tight in his hands, "Bertholdt, you taught me all of this, and there's nothing I could every do in this lifetime to thank you for helping me see through the kind of horrible things that were going on right under my own nose."

"I'm sorry," Reiner said, "I'm sorry on behalf of this entire world for all of the unfair things you've been put through."

Bertholdt's tears finally spilled over.

* * *

Bertholdt watched as Reiner did a quick and careful job of covering the already difficult to spot kubelwagen under a pile of fallen leaves and soggy chestnut branches, blending it in as well as possible with the surrounding shrubs and greenery. Even if a large patrol went by - and there was no doubt that one eventually would - there was a good chance that they wouldn't spot the kubelwagen without getting out of their vehicles and physically brushing away the leaves and twigs. He hoped they wouldn't go that far, and that they would assume that they had driven straight toward the border.

They had veered off of the path by ten minutes, stopping themselves at a small, broken down hut that no doubt used to house food for horses and other farm animals. Bertholdt wondered why someone would abandon such a large tract of farm land in such a sought out place, but eventually he realized that it had probably belonged to someone who had been forcibly taken away.

It had probably belonged to a family of Jews.

Bertholdt saw Reiner look back behind his left shoulder to check on him, he had placed him atop a stack of hay, where he wearily watched Reiner make sure that all their tracks were covered.

Bertholdt tried his best to keep his eyelids open, opening them wide and moving around a little as soon as he felt like he was going to fall asleep. However, each time they fluttered open, the harder it got to keep it that way.

The last time they closed, Bertholdt remembered seeing Reiner walking toward him with a concerned look on his face.

Bertholdt felt blessed for Reiner's compassion and understanding, but at the same time, he felt cursed – in order to teach Reiner about his own struggles; he had almost automatically doomed him to the same fate as he.

That was the price of war.

* * *

**A/N: I am truly sorry for the long wait, but University took a lot more out of me than I expected! I really wasn't prepared for the unbearable homesickness that came over me (my parents are in another province about 5-6 hours away). But, I've gotten better, I still miss my mama obviously, but I'm starting to settle down more and more everyday. It also helps that Prince Edward Island happens to be a really beautiful place!**

**My only problem here in the price of the text books! Phew! I'm here on a full scholarship but I sadly had to foot the bill for some of my text books.**

**Anyways, you can expect regular updates again! Thanks for sticking with me. : )**


	7. Chapter 7

Reiner didn't sleep much that night.

Even with the gentle breeze that rolled through the cracks in the barn and the smell of the damp Earth surrounding him, he couldn't relax. His mind roared, refusing to forget about the events that had played out only hours before. These thoughts and memories refused to let him rest or forgive himself. He understood that it needed to be done, but that didn't make the burden on him weigh any less.

"Reiner."

It was Bertholdt, his voice barely loud enough to be heard over the sound of the wind rustling the hay and jostling the boards above them.

Reiner hesitated, thinking that maybe ignoring him and feigning sleep would be for the best, but despite that thought, he turned over to face Bertholdt.

"I'm sorry," Bertholdt said, his dark eyes refusing to meet Reiner's gold.

"Sorry for what?" Reiner asked, already knowing the answer Bertholdt was going to give him as he rolled over onto his back. He sighed, watching his breath billow out of his mouth and into the chilly, unseasonable night air.

"For dragging you into this," Bertholdt said. "If I'd have known I was going to have so much influence over you, I never would have opened my mouth when you first entered my cell."

"We wouldn't be here now if you hadn't."

"No, you're right, I would be on my way to Auschwitz or Bełżec, and you would be getting a promotion. That's where we would be right now."

"Do you think that's a good thing, Bertholdt?"

Reiner heard the hay shift as Bertholdt sat up, "yes, Reiner, I think that that would have been for the best."

Bertholdt spoke with absolute conviction. He truly believed that things would have been better if he had just been sent to a concentration camp.

Reiner knew that Bertholdt was looking at him when he answered him – could see his unwavering expression directed at him – but he couldn't find it in himself to look. He didn't want to look, because he didn't want to see another hurt expression on his face.

Bertholdt was instantly placed on death's door just by being a Jew, and yet he was concerned about Reiner's own life more than his own. It wasn't fair; the whole point of Reiner running away and rebelling was to ensure that Bertholdt could escape the horror that was German control. Yet here he was, feeling bad about Reiner, and wishing that he had just ended up in one of the concentration camps in the end.

"Do you realize how that makes me feel?" Reiner questioned, finally rolling over onto his side so he could look Bertholdt in the eye.

"I did all of this to prove to you that what you told me made sense – made me see the light, and you're going to criticize my actions? Even if I wanted to go back – and I don't – I couldn't. I understand that you can't see me in a good light because of the things I've done in my past, but please, this isn't just me trying to prove to you that I'm a decent person. Bertholdt, I just want you to live. That's all. Can you allow me that, at least?" Reiner rolled back over onto his back again, unable to meet Bertholdt's eyes.

"I'm not upset about that, Reiner. I'm upset about the fact that you threw your life away so carelessly for someone you barely know. Even if you had let me get taken to the death camps, I wouldn't have been upset, in fact, I would have been happy just knowing that I had helped someone see how cruel the war is. Reiner, I wo-"

"Go to sleep," Reiner cut Bertholdt off mid-sentence, voice muffled by the arm he had draped over his face. His attempt at sounding annoyed and angry had failed, and with the deafening silence in the barn, the sadness, helpless undertones in his voice were all too clear to Bertholdt.

Bertholdt got the hint and decided not to push Reiner anymore.

* * *

Bertholdt awoke to a dim morning light filtering through a crack in the ceiling above him, something he had grown used to seeing during he and Reiner's' three weeks of hiding in the barn. The light heated his skin and hay beneath him, chasing the chill out of his bones.

However, there was still an ever-present chill that the light could not chase away.

They still hadn't come up with an escape plan in the time that they had been stuck hiding at the barn, and Bertholdt was starting to doubt that they ever would.

Bertholdt truly wished they could stay where they were forever, living carefree with no worries about the cruel world around them. However, they both knew that they would be found out if they overstayed their welcome at the barn. Not only was that a great concern, but eventually the small animals and pond fish they were living on would run out and they would be left with nothing to do but starve to death.

In the end, it would be one or the other.

Bertholdt leaned back and sighed softly, listening close to the sound of the wood creaking from the gentle wind outside. The sound of creaking wood or slamming shutters would normally be disturbing, but the familiar sound was incredibly soothing to Bertholdt. Having grown up on a farm for most of his life, the sound was more than welcome.

Nostalgia washed over him in waves, pulling him from reality for a few wonderful – yet brief – few minutes. Bertholdt rolled onto his stomach and breathed in the smell of hay and the damp earth underneath it like he had done when he was but a small child. It was a wonderful smell.

Two years earlier, Bertholdt would have called someone insane for telling him that he would come to miss such simple things.

Just as Bertholdt was about to drift out of consciousness again, Reiner's voice woke him up.

"Come," Reiner said from where he stood in the rickety door frame, motioning for Bertholdt to follow him out of the barn. Bertholdt got up quickly, brushing the hay off of his pants haphazardly as Reiner led him into the back where more than a dozen overgrown and untrimmed trees began growing onto - and into - the old barn.

Bertholdt followed Reiner silently and without question, almost walking into him when he came to a quick halt in front of a tall and wide tree - arguably the biggest tree on the lot.

Bertholdt marked the strange notches and carvings on the tree - there was something about the tree that looked familiar, but Bertholdt couldn't quite put his finger on it. Bertholdt forgot about it quickly though, too busy wondering why Reiner had brought him outside to begin with.

Without saying anything Reiner pointed up to a small, golden tabby that seemed to be stuck on a slim branch fairly high up in the tree. It was still a small kitten from what Bertholdt could tell – no more than a month. It had striking blue eyes, and reminded him somewhat of the large red barn cat that used to attack him and his older brother when they got too close to where it has chosen to rest.

"I can't reach it," Reiner said, "and I don't want to climb the tree and break the branch it's on."

"What do we do then?"

"Get on my shoulders," Reiner said simply, already bending forward so Bertholdt could climb on. "We can definitely reach it then."

Bertholdt chuckled lightly, a little wary, but he was eventually coaxed into getting onto Reiner's broad shoulders. He almost fell over a few times as he was being lifted, but Reiner's hands steadied him, holding his firmly around the waist. Bertholdt almost fell over when he felt one of Reiner's thumbs brush the skin under his tattered shirt, feeling slightly shocked by the intimate touch. Bertholdt eventually passed it off as an accident, though, and reached his arms up for the trapped cat instead of focusing on Reiner's actions.

Bertholdt wrapped his hands around the small tabby and brought it to his chest, holding it securely to his chest as Reiner helped him down from his shoulders.

When Bertholdt had both feet on the ground, he finally got a chance to look at the cat that was currently purring in his arms. The cat was female, however it wasn't a kitten like they had previously assumed, it was just simply a small cat.

"You're kind of small for a barn cat, aren't you?" Bertholdt asked, scratching the cat's stomach when it rolled onto its back, still purring like a lawn mower. Bertholdt softly stroked the cat's slick golden fur, revelling in the familiar feel. There were so many little things – things like this small cat – which he missed so greatly.

"Bertholdt, are you alright?"

Bertholdt looked down at the cat, marking the dark, wet patches on its white chest. Bertholdt was confused at first, wondering if it had started raining, only to realize that the wet patches were from the tears falling from his eyes in large, clear drops.

"Bert," Reiner said softly, an attempt to calm him down. However, Reiner only proved to make Bertholdt's tears fall harder at the use of the nickname Reiner had recently started using.

Bertholdt hugged the cat closer to his chest, burying his dirty face in the cat's sun-warm fur. It was times like these – when reality hit him like a ton of bricks – that were truly the hardest to handle. It was so bad that Bertholdt couldn't stop himself, crying so hard that his breaths were coming in short bursts and his eyes burned and stung from the hot, salty tears spilling over his eyelids and onto his cheeks.

Bertholdt was so focused on his own misery that he jolted when he felt Reiner's strong arms wrap around his shoulders, embracing him tightly.

"I know," Reiner whispered softly, rubbing soothing circles into Bertholdt's pitifully bony back. "I know."

Bertholdt's tears were starting to let up, however the sharp sobs wouldn't stop spilling from his mouth. In an attempt to muffle them, Bertholdt pressed his tear swollen face into the crook of Reiner's neck, wetting the collar of his shirt with his tears. "I'm so tired, Reiner. I'm so tired of all this."

Reiner didn't respond. He remained quiet, just standing there holding Bertholdt close to his chest – the sound of the cat purring and the whistling wind the only thing they could hear. They stood there for a long amount of time, Bertholdt wasn't exactly sure how long, but by the time he had stopped crying, mid-afternoon light was burning Reiner's light skin and darkening his already tanned skin.

"Come on, let's go inside before we get bad burns," Reiner said, tugging at the hem of one of Bertholdt's shirt gently so he would follow him into the barn. Bertholdt followed behind him, he was still sniffling, but he had otherwise stopped crying.

He didn't feel any better, but the tears had stopped flowing.

He sat in the middle of the barn, quietly stroking the tiny cat's back as Reiner tried to create a small fire – doing the best with what he had – so he could cook what little scraps remained.

Bertholdt tried not to think too deeply on the matter, but he knew from what he was seeing that they only had a few days left - one or two if they were lucky - before they would have to leave the barn for good. They would have to leave, and they would undoubtedly be caught before they could even come close to the border. There was no way they could make it out of occupied Germany alive, especially when considering their status.

Bertholdt watched silently as Reiner piled some of the pond fish onto the stone slab atop the small fire he had managed to make out of wood scraps and old hay.

"Is this what it was like?" Reiner asked out of the blue, breaking the silence in the barn.

"Like what?" Bertholdt asked, eyes trained on the fire that licked at the sides of the stone slab.

"All that time you spent on the run," Reiner started, "is this how you lived every day?"

Bertholdt huffed bitterly, "this is luxury compared to most of the nights I spent on the road."

Bertholdt finally looked away from the fire and up at Reiner, only to see a deeply troubled look on his face. He knew what Reiner was thinking just by the helpless look in his eyes.

"That's horrible," Reiner muttered, bowing his head even low to the ground.

"Yes, it was horrible," Bertholdt agreed, nodding his head, "but there's nothing you could have done to change it, Reiner, so don't even think about it. What's done is done."

"Then why were you crying?"

"I didn't say it still doesn't hurt, did I? Of course it hurts – it'll always hurt. I miss my mom, my sister, my brother, my father, I miss the chores that I used to hate doing on the farm, I miss feeding the horses and going to the market for my mother on the weekends. I miss everything about my old life, and it hurts when I'm reminded of it. But, I can't change the past, I've accepted this a long time ago."

There was a heavy silence that fell between the two of them, and they ate quickly and quietly. When they were done, they both found different ways to occupy their time. Bertholdt played with the small cat until the sky became deep red, and Reiner busied himself with trying to patch the cracks in the roof even though it would be pointless to do so.

They carried on like that for a long while.

* * *

It was night time by the time Bertholdt finally spoke up from where he sat close to the fire with the cat.

"Annie," he said aloud in a tone that suggested he had remembered something very important.

Reiner turned around and looked at him quizzically, "what?"

"The cat," Bertholdt said, "I want to name her Annie."

Reiner put the board he was holding down onto the ground, crouching down in front of Bertholdt so he could scratch Annie under the chin. "Yeah, I like that name."

"It sounds familiar," Bertholdt said, looking up at the cracked wood of the roof as if he were searching for something. "I feel like I've heard it somewhere before."

"Me too," Reiner said, letting his hand drop from the underside of the small cat's chin. "It's a nice name."

Bertholdt hummed softly in agreement, "I think so too."

Bertholdt stretched his arms out, and as soon as he did so the cat ran from his lap, only to curl up in a tight ball on a stack of hay on the top landing.

"I guess we're sleeping down here," Reiner said with a snort.

"Hm," Bertholdt hummed, a troubled look on his face.

"What's wrong?"

Bertholdt went straight to it.

"Reiner," Bertholdt started, "I'm grateful for all this time that we've had, but there's not many resources around here that we can live off of, and we'll eventually be caught if we stick around too long. We've already overstayed our welcome in this place."

Reiner put his head in his hands, "we still have some time left, Bertholdt, let's not think about this right n-"

"No, Reiner, we don't have any time left to spare, you and I both know this."

"Bertholdt…"

"I'd love to stay here as much as the next person, Reiner, but we can't. We can't keep doing this, we need to face reality."

"You're right," Reiner said, his face contorted in grief despite his confident tone. "But it's fine, because I'll get you to America, and we'll have plenty of time to do things like this. We could eat at nice restaurants, and take English classes together, and-"

Reiner stopped himself from talking when he noticed Bertholdt's dismal expression. He had a naturally doleful look, but the sadness was all too noticeable on his face.

"What's wrong, Bert?" Reiner asked even though he knew exactly what was wrong, he just didn't want to acknowledge it.

Both Bertholdt and Reiner knew that getting away from Poland – let alone Europe – would be virtually impossible for the two of them. Reiner was a military criminal, and Bertholdt a Jew. Their situation was hopeless.

"I wish we could have that," Bertholdt said, "I really do, Reiner, but you know that the chances of us getting away are slim. Unless the war ends, Reiner, I don't…"

Reiner made his way over to Bertholdt's hunched form, arms reaching out to wrap around Bertholdt's shoulders. He knew that the touch was intimate, too intimate for them, yet everyday he would find himself wrapping his arms around Bertholdt – hugging him close when it got cold at night or if Bertholdt was upset.

Bertholdt never commented on it, but he never pushed Reiner away.

This time was different though.

Reiner wrapped his arm around Bertholdt's shoulders, levering himself off of the ground so he could place a soft kiss on Bertholdt's forehead. Reiner sat back down, arms still around Bertholdt's shoulders, and he nuzzled his nose into junction where Bertholdt's shoulder met his neck.

"If it were up to me," Reiner said, "I would stay here with you forever."

"Reiner."

Reiner pulled his face away from Bertholdt's neck until they were eye-to-eye, their noses just barely brushing.

It was Bertholdt who initiated – much to Reiner's surprise. He inched his face forward slowly until his lips were just barely ghosting across Reiner's own, his breath heating Reiner's cold skin.

Bertholdt put his head down onto Reiner's shoulder, too embarrassed to meet Reiner's eyes even after such an innocent action.

Reiner, having none of that, gripped Bertholdt's chin between his thumb and forefinger, bringing their lips together heatedly. Bertholdt resisted him at first, uncomfortable with the situation, but eventually he allowed himself to give in to what he wanted.

He allowed himself to have Reiner, if only for a short amount of time.

Bertholdt was slightly shocked when he felt a hot tongue probing at the seam of his lips, and being uncomfortable and inexperienced, he didn't really know what to do aside from parting them for Reiner. However, what he did seemed to be right as Reiner groaned into the kiss heatedly.

Bertholdt felt his body flush from the tips of his toes right to the top of his head.

Reiner pushed Bertholdt back gently until he was angled comfortably against a pile of hay. Reiner didn't want to scare him or upset him. His intentions were to wash away the memory of the Captain, to replace the memory of the captain with a memory of himself instead. However, when Reiner pressed his body flush against Bertholdt, Bertholdt flinched and tried to push him off of him.

"Sorry," Reiner said gently, backing up to give Bertholdt the space he needed. He wouldn't force himself on Bertholdt; no meant no.

Bertholdt's chest rose and fell erratically, his breath coming in short puffs as he tried to look at anything but Reiner.

"No," Bertholdt finally said after his breathing had calmed down, "don't stop."

* * *

"Are you alright?" Reiner asked as he nipped at the base of Bertholdt's neck gently, laving his tongue over the reddened skin.

"Yeah," Bertholdt said, finally relaxed enough to respond to Reiner properly.

Before they had to leave, they wanted to spend as much time with each other as possible.

It may well be the last time they see each other.

As Reiner finished marking up Bertholdt's neck with playful bites, he began working at the buttons on Bertholdt's shirt, leaving gentle kisses on the dark skin that was revealed after each button was undone.

After Reiner successfully unbuttoned the tattered blue shirt, and all of the flesh on Bertholdt's person had been kissed, Reiner pulled the offending shirt off of Bertholdt's thin shoulders in one quick motion.

Bertholdt responded in kind by crossing his arms in front of himself.

Reiner tried to pry his arms down, wondering what was wrong, but Bertholdt's arms wouldn't give way.

"Don't," Bertholdt said breathlessly through shallow pants, "don't look at my body."

Reiner understood then what the problem was, he understood where part of Bertholdt's discomfort was coming from.

"It's alright," Reiner said, not taking his hand off of Bertholdt's arms but also not trying to force him to take them down either.

"It's not alright," Bertholdt said. "It's ugly."

"I don't think so," Reiner said softly, placing a kiss on the underside of Bertholdt's chin, "I think you're beautiful."

Bertholdt visibly reddened at the use of this word, even in the dim glow that the fire gave off in the dark room Reiner could see it painting his cheeks dark red. But, despite this visible reddening, Reiner's comment seemed to give Bertholdt more confidence as he began unfolding his arms from the front of his chest.

Bertholdt's emaciated body was bad, that was true, but it was in no way ugly.

Reiner smiled warmly at Bertholdt when he finally let his arms down, and to prove to Bertholdt that he wasn't disturbed by his form, he ducked his head and kissed each protruding rib, and even the deep dip in his navel. Kissing different parts of his body seemed to get a good reaction out of Bertholdt, so Reiner experimentally put his mouth on one of Bertholdt's nipples, wondering if a man could enjoy being touched there like a woman.

Bertholdt jolted when Reiner pressed his mouth to the darker flesh, and with this unexpected reaction Reiner decided to take his time trying to make him feel good. He wanted Bertholdt to forget about the next day for as long as possible. Reiner opened his mouth and laved his tongue over the sensitive area, pleased at the low, muffled moan Bertholdt let out when Reiner did so.

"Does that feel good?" Reiner asked.

"Yeah," Bertholdt answered breathlessly through clenched teeth, trying his best to hold in the sounds that wanted to make their way out of his tightly sealed mouth.

Reiner reached up and pressed his fingers to Bertholdt's mouth. "It's OK," he said, "we're alone out here; you don't have to be quiet."

Reiner pressed he and Bertholdt's mouths back together again to reassure Bertholdt.

Reiner took this distraction as a chance to get closer to Bertholdt, and he experimentally rocked his hips against Bertholdt's, pressing a thigh gently between Bertholdt's legs for good measure.

Bertholdt was hard, arguably even harder than he was.

Bertholdt looked away shyly, suppressing a moan when Reiner rubbed his thigh against him for the second time.

Reiner's skin was hot, and his shirt was sticking uncomfortable to his sweat coated skin. Reiner grabbed his under shirt by the hem and ripped it over his head without another thought and threw it into the pile with Bertholdt's button up shirt.

Bertholdt took a moment to admire Reiner's body then, hands running over the taut muscle on his arms and stomach.

Bertholdt laughed bitterly, "I wish I looked like this."

Letting his fingers trace each ab carefully, Bertholdt said, "maybe in another world my body looks something like this."

Reiner hummed, pressing his nose into Bertholdt's hair, "I would like you no matter what kind of body you had."

Bertholdt grew quiet; however his hands still explored Reiner's body.

Reiner was quiet and remained steady as Bertholdt did this, letting Bertholdt get acquainted with his body as best as he could in the short amount of time they were given. He wanted to remember Bertholdt, and in turn, he wanted Bertholdt to remember him.

Reiner sat back down and pressed himself against Bertholdt again, however this time, in order to elicit a reaction, Reiner ground his clothed erection against Bertholdt's.

Bertholdt let out a muffled cry against Reiner's shoulder, rocking his own hips up into Reiner unconsciously.

Reiner, unsatisfied with the clothing barrier between them, reached down and carefully undid Bertholdt's buttons. He wanted to give Bertholdt enough time to say no if he didn't want that, however, Bertholdt didn't stop him.

Reiner pulled Bertholdt's cock free of the confines of his pants and gave him three steady strokes, each one eliciting increasingly lewd groans from Bertholdt. Reiner ducked his head and mouthed at one of Bertholdt's nipples, hoping to cause more of those sounds to slip from Bertholdt's mouth.  
He was rewarded with Bertholdt crying out and bucking his hips up into his unrelenting grip. Bertholdt was shuddering and moaning with each flick of his tongue and pump of his fist like it was the only thing he could do.

"Reiner," Bertholdt whined, pulling on Reiner's fine blonde hair. "I'm so close, Reiner."

Reiner pulled back at this, leaning back on his haunches to take in the mess he had made of Bertholdt.

Bertholdt's cheeks were flushed deep red, his skin was covered in darkening bruises, and his chest was rising and falling wildly. Just the sight of him caused a deep groan to escape Reiner's chest.

Reiner made quick work of the tattered belt on his pants, casting it aside as he unbuttoned his trousers. Just the feel of his own hand on his flushed cock made his double over, groaning aloud.

He was close too, very close.

Reiner almost fell backward when he felt Bertholdt's hand reach out, long, slender fingers wrapping themselves around his hard cock.

This time Reiner really did fall back on his rear end, landing on the soft hay with a small gasp. Bertholdt pushed Reiner onto his back until he was lying flat, looking up at Bertholdt as he climbed onto his lap and straddled his hips.

"Bert-"

Reiner didn't even get a chance to get the name out before Bertholdt had wrapped both he and Reiner into his hands. Reiner let out a loud moan, throwing his head back into the hay beneath them. With each hard stroke, Reiner felt himself getting so close that he thought if he looked at Bertholdt making lewd expressions any longer, he wouldn't be able to hold it.

Reiner let himself drown in the sensation of Bertholdt's fingers working both of them together, every now and then bucking his hips from the pleasure.

Their position was so shameless.

Reiner finally looked down from where he was looking up at the broken ceiling, biting his lip to distract himself from the heat and pressure in his loins.

Reiner could tell that Bertholdt was incredibly close just by the look of pure bliss on his face, and so was he. Reiner reached one of his hands up and twined them with Bertholdt's, pumping both of them together.

This action is what pushed Bertholdt over the proverbial edge.

Bertholdt tilted his head down, keeping steady eye-contact with Reiner as he came, crying his name over and over as he painted both of their hands in come.

Reiner followed quickly behind him, hands twined with Bertholdt's as he finally came.

* * *

They fell asleep sometime afterward, snuggled together under musty smelling blankets around the dying light of the fire. They didn't speak a word to each other after what they had done, but it wasn't discomfort that stopped them from speaking to each other.

They both feared that they would say something that they could never take back, something that would haunt them for the rest of their lives if one of them were to die.

Instead of saying those three words that could spell a horrible end, they revelled in each other's company in complete silence.

* * *

**A/N: Thanks for reading! I understand that this chapter was hella late, but I realize now that the amount of work given in university is WAY more than high school (though I'm still enjoying university 100000% more). Anyways, there's only two chapter left after this, and I already have it all plotted out right to the very last word. Hehe.**

**I realize the sex scene wasn't exactly EXPLICIT, but it was still a sex scene nonetheless. I didn't really think anal would be appropriate here anyway as the captain had already hurt Bertholdt like that. I also doubt there would be any available lubrication even if they had wanted to try it (spit is not lube, friends). Plus, sex is sex, penetration or no penetration. I was really more concerned with trying to portray Reiner's affection for Bertholdt.**

**Stay tuned friends, and expect a chapter within a week/two weeks!**


	8. Chapter 8

"Bertholdt, wake up, we need to get going soon."

Bertholdt woke up to Reiner's gentle shaking, opening his eyes to soak in the dull morning light that always shone in from the cracked board on the roof for what would probably be the last time. It was a cruel joke, he believed, that the weather would be nice on the one day he had been dreading the most since they had arrived at the barn. However, the worst thing – without a doubt – was waking up with the realization that these would be the last moments he would be able to spend with Reiner.

Bertholdt grimaced at this thought and looked down at his hands, trying to pretend that it was the glare from the sun and not his own thoughts that had caused the reaction. The last thing he wanted to do was upset Reiner.

Reiner, however, had been feeling the same way upon waking up, and realized what was going through Bertholdt's head almost immediately. Without another thought, he lifted Bertholdt's chin and pressed his lips to Bertholdt's, they were dry and cracked from dehydration, but chapped lips were the least of his concerns. Reiner pressed his forehead to Bertholdt's, keeping his eyes focused on him, "I'll do whatever it takes to get us out of here, Bertholdt, I promise."

"I know, Reiner. I know you will."

Bertholdt and Reiner both tried to pretend that their words were not goodbyes.

* * *

The drive to the border would be a long one, it would be night by the time they finally reached it. It was a risk driving out in the open in the middle of the day, but they had no other choice. They would either have to leave in the middle of the night and arrive during the morning, or leave during the morning and arrive during the middle of the night. The latter was a much better idea as the cover of the night could play a big part in helping them escape undetected.

The only thing they could do was hope and pray that the search for them had stopped after the three weeks they had been hiding themselves away in the abandoned barn.

That was probably hoping for too much, though.

The drive was generally quiet, and the sun was falling when Reiner finally began speaking to Bertholdt again, causing him to jerk away from the door where he had been slouched over.

"I have a plan to cross the border, Bertholdt. It's messy and dangerous, but it gives us a much better chance than trying to drive right through an open area where we could be spotted by soldiers."

Bertholdt nods his head for Reiner to go on. He realizes when Reiner opens his mouth that his silence for so long was probably due to the fact that he had been going over their options over and over in his mind.

"I remember upon coming into Poland that there were weak points along the border. We couldn't afford to use our limited forces on simple border patrol, so the enforcement had to be made sparse is certain areas…"

"Where?" Bertholdt asked

"There's a forest of giant trees on the border that leads into Kiev, we can get past the border that way if we're quiet," Reiner said, eyes narrowed as he watched their surroundings.

"Kiev," Bertholdt started, trying to recall where he had heard the name before. When it did come to him, his eyes widened. "Reiner, you want to cross over into the Soviet Union?"

"Where else are we supposed to go, Bert? We're surrounded by axis, and the USSR is our best bet at the moment."

"But Reiner, they were allied with Germany when the war started. They had a strong alliance."

"Not anymore," Reiner said, "Long story short, the Fuhrer stabbed Stalin in the back in order to further his plans."

Bertholdt chuckled humourlessly, "the Fuhrer will really use any means to get what he wants, hm?"

Reiner put his head down, "believe me when I say that I wish I had seen his actions for what they were before things got out of hand like this."

"What could you have done though, Reiner?"

Reiner shrugged, "gotten myself away from this situation earlier, although…"

Bertholdt put a hand to his forehead to keep the sun out of his eyes, "although what, Reiner?"

"If I had realized what was wrong sooner, I never would have met you. I never would have been given this chance to save you."

Bertholdt smiled painfully, all the while pulling at the hem of his shirt uncomfortably. Despite Reiner's kind words - despite how happy they made Bertholdt - he didn't want to acknowledge what Reiner had said. He didn't acknowledge what Reiner said because deep down, Bertholdt believed that Reiner and he would both have been better off not knowing each other.

It would have saved them all of this pain.

"Yeah," Bertholdt said, "I'm glad I met you too, Reiner."

"Now as long as we can make it through the forest and into the Soviet Union, we have a better chance of making it out of here. Not to mention the dense forests will give us good cover until we can make it to the unoccupied area in the Soviet Union."

"Occupied? You don't mean to say that the Soviet Union is occupied, Reiner…"

"Some of it," Reiner said bitterly, "but we can still make it through, I know it. We just have to play our cards right."

_"Play our cards right,"_ Bertholdt thought bitterly, wanting to hit Reiner for being so naive. However, he decided not to comment. He didn't want to risk ruining Reiner's mood by telling him that there was no chance for them.

He wanted to see Reiner happy and confident, at least for a little while longer.

As soon as the Soviets found out that Reiner was a part of the German military, they would either execute him on the spot or force him back into Germany. And, as for Bertholdt, he would probably just be treated as a liability and be killed on the spot.

There was nowhere safe to go.

The allied forces wouldn't accept them, and the axis saw them as traitors and rats. They were in a completely bind.

However, despite knowing this, Bertholdt allowed Reiner to press on. Reiner's endurance and determination alone made Bertholdt want to believe that there was a possibility that they could escape unscathed. Escape together.

* * *

Night had completely fallen when they caught their first glimpse of the forest with the giant trees. With the shroud of night finally beginning to wrap itself around them, they truly believed that they would be able to escape without being spotted by anyone.

With day finally breaking and the darkness covering them, the chances of them being spotted were becoming slimmer and slimmer.

"I think we can do it," Reiner said confidently, fingers gripping the wheel with so much force that his knuckles turned white. "We can make it out of this god forsaken place. We're going to get out of here, Bertholdt."

It was at that moment that Bertholdt finally allowed himself to become excited about the possibility of them escaping Poland. Though he knew that they would still face many problems after the forest and Kiev, he wanted to think that by God's good graces, they would both make it out alive.

They could be together.

However, not even ten minutes after Bertholdt had let himself get comfortable, a blinding bright light cut through the darkness and centered itself on both Reiner and Bertholdt. Almost as soon as the light had spotted them, the sound of wheels cutting through dirt and the sound of shouts broke them from their excited stupor.

They should have known better.

The search for them had never ended, the soldiers currently on their trail had probably been waiting there for them for weeks. They should have known that there would be no way that they had stopped searching after only a few weeks. Reiner was a wanted criminal for severe crimes against the German military, and Bertholdt was a Jew - born a criminal in their eyes.

They could have been hiding for months and it wouldn't have done them any good in the end.

Bertholdt looked over to Reiner, who was visibly panicking. His hands were wringing the steering wheel restlessly, and a cold sweat was breaking out on his brow. His eyes alone gave him the look of a cornered animal. Bertholdt watched closely as Reiner reached down between the seats quickly, grabbing hold of the gun between the centre console in desperation. However, before he could lift the gun and start shooting aimlessly, Bertholdt grabbed his hand before he could do anything.

"Reiner," Bertholdt said, "please stop."

The sound of the car approaching them from behind got increasingly louder, the vehicle clearly much stronger than the kubelwagen they were in. The lights got stronger, almost blinding the two of them as it got closer.

"Why?" Reiner screamed, not even making an effort to try to hide their presence. They had been found out by the German soldiers, it was too late for them.

"I'm tired of this," Bertholdt said, "I'm tired of all of this killing, so please, let's just stop it."

"We need to, Bertholdt," Reiner said, his eyes wild and desperate, "if we don't do anything about this now, we'll never get out of Poland."

Reiner took one of his hands off of the wheel to grab Bertholdt's shoulder, bringing him closer, "we'll die here, Bertholdt, the both of us will die if we don't at least try to protect ourselves."

Bertholdt bit his bottom lip to stop it from trembling, "another way, Reiner… We need to find another way to stop them."

Reiner recoiled, letting go of Bertholdt and putting his eyes back on the straight dirt road before them, "you can't be serious, Bertholdt."

"This wasn't meant to be from the very start," Bertholdt said, finally allowing his lips to tremble because Reiner couldn't see his face. "Even if you shot them, Reiner, it wouldn't do us any good. We'll be pursued to the very end, and eventually we'll be caught. There is nowhere for us to go in Europe that is safe."

Reiner cursed, over and over, pounding on the steering wheel of the kubelwagen until the hard plastic was completely bent out of shape. Reiner hung his head, hands still gripped firmly on the wheel. He chuckled humourlessly, "well, if we can't shoot at them, then our last hope is to drive away from them."

Bertholdt had never seen Reiner so out of sorts before.

Reiner pressed his foot onto the gas pedal, and the kubelwagen's speed picked up so quickly that Bertholdt felt himself being pressed into the passenger seat from the speed.

"Reiner, stop," Bertholdt said, grabbing Reiner's hands in an attempt to stop him from speeding so recklessly. They had nowhere to go, and they couldn't get very far in the forest with the wide kubelwagen before the trees would become too dense to drive through.

"Reiner, we're coming to the forest, you need to slow down or we're going to crash," Bertholdt shouted over the wind rushing into the vehicle.

Reiner, however, didn't seem to be able to hear him – or if he did, he was pretending that he couldn't.

It was then - as soon as they entered the forest - that shots were finally being fired at them from the pursuing soldiers. As soon as the soldiers behind them had identified that it was them, all bets were off.

Even as shots whizzed past them, Reiner continued on at the break neck speed, managing to outrun the car behind them despite its clearly superior engine. The only reason they were going faster was probably due to the fact that the soldiers behind them weren't as desperate to escape as what Reiner was at the moment.

It was also because the soldiers knew that they wouldn't be able to escape.

As the trees narrowed around them, Bertholdt felt himself getting more and more panicked. Not about the soldiers behind them, but about what kind of accident they would get into at the speed Reiner was travelling at.

Bertholdt believed that, in that moment, Reiner had decided to kill them both to escape the clutches of the German soldiers. At least, that was what Bertholdt was sure Reiner was going to do, but even if he had planned on that he didn't have the chance.

It was on one of the last rounds of bullets - Bertholdt couldn't be sure - that one of the tires had been shot out. The car had swerved at first, but because of their speed Reiner couldn't quite get control of the normally sturdy vehicle, and it spun out of control on the road. They were lucky that they had fixed the hood in place before they had left, as the car rolled several times forward and into a ditch.

They were lucky for the kubelwagen and its safety measures, as they certainly would have died in such a crash had they been in a normal vehicle. Even with its strength, the kubelwagen was destroyed from the roll. The passengers were fine – conscious even – however Reiner had sustained a heavy injury to his arm when they had been thrown from the vehicle. From the look of it, it was a compound fracture, and there was also a long cut from a branch that had hit him making its way across his face and marring his features with blood.

Bertholdt himself had only attained a cut on his neck from the accident, but it wasn't anything near the injuries Reiner had sustained.

"Bertholdt," Reiner started, reaching out with his broken arm and hissing when he strained it to grab Bertholdt by the collar of his shirt.

"I'm fine," Bertholdt said from where he was sprawled out on the ground, so weak that he was unable to lift his chin from the muddy water in the ditch. Despite not being broken anywhere, Bertholdt couldn't find it in himself to move.

He was tired.

Reiner huffed through his nose, wiping at the blood that was already starting to clot around the wound on his face, "we need to go, come on."

_"How pathetic,"_ Bertholdt thought to himself as Reiner tried desperately to get to his feet, _"how pathetic we are."_

Reiner was still trying to get to his feet when the sound of footsteps starting drawing closer. There was no way they could run anymore – neither of them had it in them to run any longer.

Reiner miserably fell over onto his back into the muddy water for the third time, cradling his arm to his chest pitifully as he acknowledged defeat.

"I'm sorry," Reiner choked out, and for the first time since they had started running, he cried. "I'm so sorry, Bertholdt."

Bertholdt finally found the energy – one last burst of it – to lift his chest out of the murky water. And, smiling bitterly, he grabbed Reiner's unwounded hand and brought it to his mouth, kissing each finger.

"I'm sorry…" Reiner kept repeating, over and over.

The heavy footfalls were almost on them – they would find Reiner and Bertholdt in a matter of minutes.

"I'm sorry too, Reiner," Bertholdt finally cut in to Reiner's inane apologies, "I'm sorry that we couldn't escape this place together."

Bertholdt thought that he had cried away all of the tears that he had had on reserve, but it seemed that they were still present. Bertholdt pulled himself out of the shallow water until his chest was pressed to Reiner's, staring into his eyes one last time.

That was it – the last time.

"I love you," Bertholdt cried, "I love you so much, and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry that it all has to end like this."

Bertholdt said them in a moment of panic, the words he had been trying so hard not to let escape his mouth.

"There they are," a booming voice cut into their conversation.

A bright light flashed down on both Reiner and Bertholdt, temporarily blinding them.

It was the General.

Reiner and Bertholdt didn't have enough energy left in themselves to struggle, so when they were arrested, they just let it happen. They let the iron cuffs be squeezed tight around their arms, and they let the soldiers throw them into the back of their kubelwagens.

They didn't fight.

They let themselves be taken away to the military prison where they would be sentenced to whatever cruel punishment was deemed fit for traitors like them. 

* * *

**A/N: Hey guys! First I want to say _'iamsosorrygomenforthistorture,'_ and also that you can expect the next chapter to be up either tomorrow night or Monday night. I've decided that I want to have this work completely finished before the next chapter of the manga comes out. Why? Because the next manga chapter could seriously mess up my planned ending - and I do not want that. **

**Stick around for the last chapter, and thank you guys so much for sticking with me for so long!**


	9. Chapter 9 - Final

Bertholdt and Reiner are taken back to the military prison in separate vehicles, and the soldiers that were transporting them make it a point to not let them see each other when they haul them into their respective cells.

They planned on making their deaths as painful as possible.

Reiner is thrown into his cell unceremoniously, and with his vision blocked out by the black fabric they had looped around his eyes, he hits the unforgiving cement floor with a loud grunt, slamming his face into it to add insult to injury. When he lifts his head, he can feel blood trickling out of his nose and the corner of his mouth, but these were the least of his worries.

"Hey," Reiner called angrily, forcing himself off of the cold ground and into a sitting position, staring into the direction he believes the soldiers were in. "What are you planning on doing with him now?"

There was an unbearable silence in the room for a long while, to the point that Reiner believed that he was truly alone in his cell. However, just as he started believing that they had left him alone, he felt a foot connect with his stomach with so much force that he fell over onto his back with a pained grunt.

"It's not your place to ask, scum," a voice – an all too familiar voice – reached Reiner's ears.

It was the General.

Reiner swallowed hard in fear despite not wanting to look fearful in the face of the General.

The fact that he couldn't see anything through the thick fabric over his eyes only intensified his fear of the powerful man standing before him.

Reiner waited, fidgeting, for another blow to land, tensing his muscles so he wouldn't take the full impact like the last time. However, another blow wasn't sent his way. Instead, the General leaned over his hunched form and grabbed a handful of hair at the nape of his neck, jerking his head until he was only inches away from his battle-hardened face.

Because Reiner's hair had grown while he was in hiding with Bertholdt, the General didn't have a hard time grabbing hold of his blonde locks.

"You had great potential as a soldier, Reiner," the General said, "you were brought up a good son, had everything you ever wanted, and this is how you repay the people you love? This is how you repay your country? What a fool."

The General was screaming by this point, Reiner could almost see the snarling expression he was making. He had seen the General getting this angry only once before, and he had been terrified for the person that had been the one to cause this anger in him.

Now it was Reiner's turn to be the target.

Reiner felt the hand on the nape of his neck disappear, but the General didn't leave him alone after this. Reiner could hear the sound of his boot heels clapping against the pavement, pacing, back and forth around the small cell.

Each step got Reiner's heart racing, pounding up into his throat, but this time, Reiner realized, his heart was not beating because he was scared for his own safety. He was scared for Bertholdt's safety.

If Reiner argued back with the General, or did anything other than agree to his whims, Bertholdt would be hurt even more than he already was. He needed to go against what he believed in order to protect him, and if that was what it took, he was OK with stomping on his pride - repeatedly.

He was more than willing.

"So the Jews' name is Bertholdt, correct?"

Reiner nodded his head, 'yes'.

"Address me properly, scum," the General shouted, ramming the heel of his boot into Reiner's face, and in turn causing the blood dripping from the corner of his mouth to thicken.

Reiner felt more blood trickle down from his nose and onto the floor in front of him.

"Yes, Sir," Reiner shouted.

"That's disgusting," the General muttered, "there is nothing more disgusting than a Jew that shares the same name with German people."

Reiner didn't respond – didn't dare respond – as he listened to the General's enraged ramblings.

The General chuckled, "and you, Reiner Braun, golden boy in the ranks, decided to betray everything for this Jew? Why, why would you do something so ridiculous? I cannot fathom why you would betray your entire country for this creature."

Reiner didn't answer.

Another kick to his face – this time he was certain that his nose was broken.

"Answer me!"

Reiner couldn't lie, couldn't think of an excuse, so he told the General exactly why he was done what he had, "because he made me realize the faults in the Fuhrer's cruel actions against the Jewish people, Sir."

"And you believed him? You believed a filthy Jew that had been in hiding for the past three years over your superiors?"

"Yes, Sir."

When the General's heavy boot heel hit his face for the third time, Reiner felt two of his molars come loose from the vicious force. Reiner coughed, barely even having time between kicks to spit out the two teeth that had been violently kicked loose. The General kicked and hit him everywhere, not even having the decency to aim for one specific area. He aimed carelessly, mercilessly beating him until Reiner was huddled on the floor and panting heavily.

"As for that Jew," the General started, a smirk in his voice "he'll be getting nothing but the best."

Reiner visibly flinched, and before he could stop himself, he felt himself lunging for the General.

"That's not going to work on me," the General said, gripping Reiner around the throat - hard enough to bruise - before he could even get close to him. "I'm not some stupid lackey, I'm where I am today because of idiots like you." The General cursed under his breath before he threw Reiner back to the ground unceremoniously.

"Chain his arms up," the General said to the soldiers outside as he left the cell, "we can't leave a wild animal loose

* * *

They weren't even spared a day before they received their judgements - judgements that were as harsh as they had expected them to be, but terrifying nonetheless.

Bertholdt was first to appear on the bench, and to add insult to injury, Reiner was forced to listen to his ruling blindfolded. Bertholdt was blindfolded as well.  
The soldiers would allow the both of them to hear what kind of death would befall the other, but they wouldn't allow them to see each other as it was being dealt.

Cruel.

"Death by hanging."

Those words made Reiner flinch, and had he not been so heavily bound and surrounded by soldiers on both sides, there was a good chance that he would have stood up and protested to it. Just the thought alone - the sight of the gallows and the crude noose - made Reiner's insides twist uncomfortably.

Even though he knew their deaths were inevitable at this point, not one part of Reiner wanted to accept it.

Not one part of Reiner would accept it.

After one trauma after another, Reiner found himself getting stuck in a fantasy that was neither real nor fake. Lying to himself, telling himself that everything was all right when in reality nothing was. They were going to die; they would be killed by the people they had opposed so intensely, and for so long.

Reiner felt like he was going insane.

A gloved hand pressed into his back harshly, coaxing him out of his seat and up to the bench so he could receive his own punishment. Reiner heard the sound of someone sitting down on the bench he had just left, and he knew that it was Bertholdt. Bertholdt who was going to have to sit and listen to what kind of punishment he would get.

Bertholdt, who was probably blaming himself for everything that had happened.

Reiner bowed his head and listened to the judge go through the motions, sounding disgusted as he read off all of the things Reiner had done. Each one was worse than the last, and each one received the same disgusted reaction.

Reiner knew that there was no way he was going to get away with any of what he had done. He knew that he was going to be executed, if not in an even more inhumane way than what Bertholdt would be.

"Death by firing squad," the judge stated intently, "however, on demand of the General, the death is to be carried out by Braun's comrades."

Reiner felt his chest seize at the answering shouts of approval, the fact that his own comrades - his brothers in arms - would so eagerly kill him made his heart twist painfully.

His own brothers would kill him without a second thought.

"Your parents have already been notified," the Judge continued without missing a beat, "and they have both decided to attend your own execution, along with a select few family members that wanted to be there when it happened." The judge continued on telling Reiner about the way the task would be carried out, sighing in a manner that let him know that he didn't care and just wanted to be done with the proceedings.

Reiner didn't know why, but for whatever reason the thought of his parents so willingly accepting his execution didn't bother him half as much as hearing about Bertholdt's execution did.

In fact, Reiner hadn't even thought of his parents until they had been brought up by the judge before him.

"...and, to further the punishment, Braun is to watch the hanging of Bertholdt Fubar tomorrow morning before his own execution on the following morning."

Reiner's thoughts about his parents came to a quick halt.

"No," Reiner said, speaking aloud despite the threats and warnings he had received only minutes before they had entered the court room. "No, I won't."

"You will, Reiner Braun, and do not act as though this is some sort of cruel punishment. You have brought this upon yourself; it is no one's fault but your own," The judge said, voice raised.

Reiner knew that, but the thought of watching Bertholdt die...

"No."

"God damn it," the General cursed, stomping impatiently towards Reiner who was already beginning to tremble and shake out of fear and anger.

"No," Reiner shouted when he felt the soldier's hands wrap around his upper arms, trying to lift him up from the ground.

"Shut the hell up, Braun," the General cursed, lifting his foot and driving it into the side of Reiner's head so hard that he blacked out from the blunt force, limp body collapsing to the floor.

* * *

The makeshift courtroom grew heavy with silence, and without even having seen anything, Bertholdt knew that the General had knocked Reiner out. He heard the familiar sound of a limp body hitting against a cement floor with no give, and then the sound of said body being dragged.

"He's fucking heavy," Bertholdt heard one of the soldiers curse over the sound of fabric rubbing against cold cement.

Bertholdt cringed and put his head down.

_No._

* * *

Reiner was awoken the next morning to a sharp kick to his stomach and the bitter, pungent taste of blood in his mouth.

He didn't even have time to register what had happened the day before when he was gripped under the arms and dragged to his feet. Shackles were unceremoniously tightened around his wrists, and he was given a swift kick in the back of his knees to get him walking out of his cell.

"What, where am I going?" Reiner asked, trying to crane his neck so he could get a better look at the soldiers walking behind him.

He was surprised to see his own friends standing behind him, but instead of the welcoming smiles he was so used to seeing, their faces were cold and unforgiving - they looked at him like he was a stranger.

"You don't remember what happened yesterday, Braun?" One of the soldiers asked, a bitter smirk splitting his face in two.

Reiner knew that something had happened – something that hadn't gone over well with him judging by the taste of blood in his mouth.

The same soldier with the sick smile on his face laughed, "the General really must have kicked the rest of your little brains out, Braun."

_"Braun,"_ Reiner thought to himself with a sad smile. His friends were no longer calling him on first name basis, when had that happened? Was what he had done truly that terrible?

"It's fine," he said to Reiner, "you'll find out what happened soon enough."

The soldier in question laughed raucously, and the other soldiers behind him joined in without hesitation, some of them even smacked Reiner on the shoulder as if they had been telling him a hilarious joke.

_"What the hell,"_ Reiner thought as he was directed into the courtyard. He squinted his eyes once his feet hit the ground as the light gleaming off of the glass windows was too bright for him to see much of anything.

What he could see, however, was the outline of a noose hanging from the gallows.

At the sight of the gallows, Reiner felt his stomach clench painfully, and before the soldiers had a chance to react he fell to his knees and started dry heaving. Now he remembered what had happened the day before. Reiner retched and heaved at the memory, but he was so dehydrated and malnourished that nothing would even come out.

Nothing would come out of his mouth but those sick, despaired cries.

The soldiers didn't bother moving him at this point, they released their hold on his arms and stood back, watching, seeming pleased with where Reiner had sat himself.

Reiner was sitting in the middle of the courtyard, only a few feet away from where Bertholdt stood in front of the General and the executioner. The rest of the soldiers that were there to watch stood off to the side, watching Reiner's reaction quietly. The reason they had hung back so far to the sides was because the soldiers wanted to watch the Jew hang, and Reiner crumble in the process.

Reiner wouldn't look up from the emerald grass, not wanting to see Bertholdt's face.

He couldn't.

"Hold his head," the General shouted from where he stood behind Bertholdt, "the orders were to have him watch the Jew hang."

Reiner kicked one of his weak legs out at the soldier approaching behind, however it didn't stop him from getting a firm grasp of his hair and craning his neck up so he couldn't look anywhere but at Bertholdt and the General.

Reiner closed his eyes.

The General scoffed, "being difficult today, are we, Braun?"

Reiner still didn't open his eyes.

"It's just another Jew," the General said coldly, "you've seen them be killed right in front of you, and you didn't even flinch. In fact, I'd even seen you laugh with your brothers about the way some of them died. Do you not remember?"

"Why is this one any different, Braun?" The General asked flatly.

At those cruel memories Reiner had been trying to repress, he broke the soldiers hold of his hair and bowed his head until his forehead was pressed into the weather beaten soil in front of him.

"This is your punishment, Braun," the General said, "face it like a true soldier and at least try to keep some of your pride, and if you refuse, we'll just have to cut away your eyelids."

Reiner choked out a sob, but brought his head up again to face the General and Bertholdt.

He didn't want to face Bertholdt, but he realized there was no way to escape looking at him when he was right before his eyes. However, as soon as he looked into his eyes, he realized that he would have been better off not looking at him at all.

He should have looked over his shoulder and pretended that he was actually watching.

If he hadn't looked at him, he realized that it would have hurt a lot less.

The look on Bertholdt's face was stuck between a multitude of conflicting emotions, all of them making Reiner want to bust the shackles around his wrists with his own teeth. Bertholdt's face was contorted, and from what Reiner could see, the emotions he was displaying were fear, anger, despair, and inexplicable sadness.

The tears that tracked down his face, however, were the thing that caused Reiner the most pain.

This wasn't the way he wanted to remember Bertholdt.

Reiner didn't want to remember Bertholdt's face as something of terror and sadness. He didn't want to remember Bertholdt's tears and cries. Reiner wanted to remember the Bertholdt that would occasionally chuckle at his dark humour, or the Bertholdt who would touch his own cheeks when he said something nice to him.

He wanted to remember his smiling face, not this, anything but this.

"One last good look?" the General asked before he unceremoniously covered Bertholdt's head with a brown straw bag.

Reiner felt his chest seize, he himself was feeling panicked and desperate on Bertholdt's behalf.

Just as the General was putting the noose around Bertholdt's neck, Reiner spoke up. His voice was trembling, and he was struggling with the shackles around his wrists until they cut into then flesh and made the skin raw and red. He would be severely bruised and sore when they were taken off, but he didn't care. The only thing he cared about was Bertholdt, and stopping the General from killing him. Doing anything he could to save his life - doing anything to protect him from what was to come.

"Please," Reiner pleaded desperately with the General, "please, General Wilhelm, please don't do this to him. He didn't do anything wrong, please, all of this was my idea. I caused all of this, I shot the Captain, I killed all of those soldiers and released all of the Jews in the base."

The General laughed, securing the noose around Bertholdt's neck until it was tight enough to see Bertholdt's throat working against it desperately. Bertholdt wasn't moving or even saying anything, but Reiner could see the fear in him despite this lack of movement.

"What does it matter if he's killed now or later, Braun?" the General asked. "Either way, he would have been killed in the concentration camps or by us, in fact, were saving him some extra torture by just hanging him here. Some of the soldiers working the concentration camps would have had a field day torturing this bean stalk."

"Please," Reiner pleaded, ignoring the General, "please, you can do whatever you wan-"

Reiner's pleading was brought to halt when one of the soldiers behind him stepped on the back of his head. "Shut the fuck up, Braun. You're pathetic. Have some god damn shame."

The General put all of his weight on one leg, an amused look on his face as he watched Reiner desperately pleading with him. "What, did you want one last night with him, Braun? What would that do for you in the end? You'd just come back tomorrow and cry some more for me. What an idiot you are."

The General grabbed the noose around Bertholdt's neck and tightened it again, however this time he tightened it until Bertholdt's coughing and hacking was audible to Reiner.

"Stop," Reiner begged pitifully.

"It's too late, Reiner."

"Wai-"

Reiner was ready to plead with the General again, doing everything in his power to hold off the execution. He was willing to crush whatever remaining pride he had in order to save Bertholdt, in fact, he would have done just about anything to stop the General.

He would have offered up both of his arms and legs for Bertholdt.

However, Reiner's pleading had clearly done nothing but feed the General's anger, as he pushed the executioner out of the way and grasped the lever in his own hands, pulling it down with a quick tug before Reiner could even get the rest of his words out of his mouth.

Reiner watched in horror as the wooden panel fell out from under Bertholdt's feet, and he watched as the rope around his neck snapped tight when he fell. But, to make matters worse for Reiner, something happened that had the soldiers around him laughing, and he himself shaking.

The fall didn't break Bertholdt's neck. Instead of giving him a quick death like the noose was supposed to, the fall wasn't quite high enough for it to break Bertholdt's neck.

Reiner didn't know if the General had done this on purpose, but it didn't matter. Nothing mattered to Reiner as he was forced to watch Bertholdt struggle and choke on the noose around his neck. He could only watch in horror as Bertholdt's legs kicked out desperately, listening as he coughed and hacked and cried for help, his voice sounding wrecked from the lack of air making its way to his lungs.

It took exactly fourteen minutes for Bertholdt to die.

Fourteen long minutes that Reiner would never forget.

Even after he had stopped moving, even after the broken sounds from his throat stopped, Reiner stayed planted to the spot, looking up at his motionless corpse. His throat worked around a scream, a scream that couldn't quite find its way out.

"This is reality," the General said with a sigh, "this is the weakness of a human being, Reiner."

Reiner finally screamed.

* * *

Reiner sat on the edge of his bed until night fell, head in his hands as he mulled over everything that had happened. Those fourteen minutes played themselves over in his mind continuously.

He couldn't stop thinking about the way Bertholdt's face had looked before the General had covered it, or the way his voice had sounded as he was being strangled by the noose around his throat. The way he had begged for help.

But most of all, Reiner couldn't stop thinking about the way he had done nothing as he watched the person he had grown to care about the most be strangled to death right before his eyes. He had just sat in place, watching in horror as Bertholdt died in what was possibly one of the cruelest ways known.

He just watched as Bertholdt begged for help.

Reiner punched the wall next to him so hard that he heard his knuckles creak, but he didn't care. He did it again and again and the skin on his knuckles was completely broken, revealing the sinewy muscle underneath.

He didn't care.

The door to his cell opened up, and before Reiner even had a chance to register the person who had entered his cell, he started speaking to him.

"Reiner Braun?"

Reiner looked up from where his eyes were focused on the wall he was punching, eyes intense.

The man standing before him looked familiar in a way that Reiner couldn't quite pick out. He was a fairly tall man with long chestnut hair, a plain face, and a pair of round glasses that the moonlight glinted off of, hiding his eyes away. He also donned a strange outfit that Reiner had never seen before - like something out of one of the renaissance books that he had read in his English classes in school - a plain tunic underneath a long brown coat. But that didn't matter to Reiner. What mattered to Reiner was what the man was about to ask of him, and how he had gotten into his cell and past the guards standing just outside of his small cell.

"Who are you?" Reiner asked, trying to see past the glare off of the man's glasses.

"That doesn't matter," the man said, "you need to listen to me."

"Why should I listen to you?" Reiner asked. "I'm as good as dead tomorrow, so whatever you have to say to me doesn't matter."

"You don't have to die tomorrow, Reiner Braun, I can get you away from this."

Reiner laughed humourlessly, "even if you could, what makes you think I want to live?"

The man didn't respond to Reiner.

"Maybe if you had come a few weeks ago I would have listened to you, but right now, I want to die. So please, leave me be."

"I can save Bertholdt as well."

Reiner grit his teeth, "well you're a little bit late for that, he's dead."

"Would you like to see him again?"

Reiner got frustrated at this, finally raising his voice at the strange man that had somehow broken into his cell unnoticed, "what, are you here to taunt me too? Get the fuck out, I don't want to deal with this shit right now. And if you don't want to leave right now, I'll be more than happy to break these chains right now and strangle you with them, so help me, I have no problem with doing that."

"How much do you care about Bertholdt Fubar, Reiner?" The man asked, undaunted by Reiner's raised voice and threats.

Reiner grit his teeth and swallowed hard, answering despite his anger at this strange man, "he was the only thing I cared about."

"What would you do to see him again, Reiner?"

Reiner looked up at the man, ready to shout at him again, however some part of him wanted to know what this man was going on about.

Some part of him wanted to think that what this man was saying meant something.

"Anything."

"Anything?"

"I would do anything to see Bertholdt again," Reiner said, his expression unwavering.

The man seemed to consider something as he looked into Reiner's eyes, scratching under his chin and muttering under his breath, "yes, I think this is good."

Reiner's eyebrows furrowed in confusion, "what a-"

"Reiner Braun, would you destroy humanity for another chance at saving Bertholdt Fubar from this fate?"

Reiner looked up at this, eyebrows drawn together even further in confusion. What this man was spouting was getting stranger and stranger, and yet Reiner couldn't find it in himself to tell him to go away.

"Yes," Reiner answered, "I would do anything to save Bertholdt Fubar from this fate."

The man before him held out his hand to him with a smile on his face, and all Reiner could do was stare at it as if it were something foreign and alien.

"Take my hand then, Reiner Braun, and you can see Bertholdt again. We can re-write humanity's history together."

Reiner bit his lip and took the strange man's hand.

* * *

"…Ner…Rei…Reiner!"

Reiner gasped as he woke up, sitting up with a jolt and in the process knocking his head against a heavy board above him.

_"What the hell?"_ Reiner thought to himself as he rubbed the bump that was already starting to form on the top of his head.

Reiner looked around at his surroundings in confusion. A warm sunlight was filtering into a barn through a broken and heavily damaged board on the roof, he was surrounded by hay, and the sound of horses braying and other farm animals travelled through the crisp, summer air.

"Reiner?" The voice called from behind him again, this time even closer than what it had been earlier.

That all too familiar voice made Reiner whip his head around so hard that he may have gotten whip last.

"Bertholdt?"

Reiner turned around to see Bertholdt – a much younger Bertholdt – dressed in suspenders and rubber boots. In his small hands were two pails filled with grains and oats.

Reiner looked down at his own person, marking the lack of muscle and the greatly decreased size. His hands alone were only half of what they were.

He was younger – much younger.

_What…_

"Reiner?" Bertholdt questioned, a concerned tone in his voice. "Did you doze off again? Come on, we need to hurry it up, my grandfather's going to be mad at us if we don't feed the pigs before evening."

"Bertholdt," Reiner's felt his hands shaking, "Bertholdt."

Reiner shot up from the ground, and before Bertholdt could even react, he threw himself at the boy. He wrapped his arms around his slight shoulder, drawing him into a hug so tight Bertholdt couldn't move his arms even if he had wanted to. He dropped the pails he was holding.

Bertholdt laughed, "what's wrong with you, Reiner? You've been acting weird all day."

Reiner let out a shaky breath, "I was just worried about you, that's all."

Bertholdt laughed again, and Reiner relished the feel of his chest rumbling.

"You've been here all day, Reiner. I was only gone for a few minutes." Bertholdt finally got enough strength to pull Reiner's arms off of him. "Now come on, stop trying to be funny, we really need to get this done."

Bertholdt walked out ahead of him, leaning over to pick up the pails he had dropped. Bertholdt, walked forward carrying both pails in his hands and stumbling slightly from the weight of them – still too small to take the weight of both of them on his own.

Reiner ran up behind him quickly and took one of the pails into his own hands.

Bertholdt smiled up at him, and Reiner realized that Bertholdt was still shorter than he was.

Reiner smiled back.

Walking out of the barn, Reiner wanted to sigh at the feeling of the sun warming his back, and the smell of fresh hay wafting out of the barn. It was so different than the damp, dirty smell of the Polish jails.

Reiner felt tears pricking at the corners of his eyes and smiled happily – despite the confusion and the fear – he would not look a gift horse in the mouth. Even if this was a dream, or if this was heaven, he didn't care – he would relish this moment for as long as he could.

Reiner threw his head back to look up at the sky and the sun, but instead of seeing familiar clouds and blue sky, Reiner was met with a great, grey wall, expanding farther than the eye could see and higher than anything Reiner had ever seen.

_Like being in a cage._

Reiner felt his heart beat pick up, readying himself to ask Bertholdt what was going on, but before he could do so Bertholdt spoke from ahead of him.

"Reiner, do you know who that man is?"

Reiner followed Bertholdt's gaze, and his eyes landed upon an all too familiar man standing off in the distance, his long brown coat fluttering around him from the gentle breeze.

"I... I don't know," Reiner said, eyes wide.

With a smirk, the man walked toward the two young boys.

_They would become warriors._

* * *

**A/N: Well, there you have it, my friends. This is the end. As you can see, the next manga chapter has serious potential to mess up this ending, so I wanted to get this out to you guys before the chapter fucked me over (hah). I'm sorry for the graphic scenes in this chapter, but they were important in adding to Reiner's insanity. I was trying very hard to progressively make Reiner insane like in the manga, and I tried to write this in a way that showed how it was all started.**

**It's harsh, and cruel, I know - but that's what I was aiming for this whole time.**

**Thank you guys for following me and supporting me throughout this fic, and I truly hope that you enjoyed it (as much as you can enjoy this kind of cruelty, heh).**

**Feel free to message me on my new blog (reiner-bertholdt . tumblr .com) - send me hate, send me criticism, send me questions, send me headcanons, send me whatever you want because I'm more than happy to listen!**

**(the blog is still under maintenance though, so mind the shitty design.)**

**Anyway, I better wrap this up here! Again, thank you all so much for following, commenting and liking this work. Your criticisms, your sweet comments, and your praise and love has kept me going all this time!**

**And who knows, you may see me again in the future!**

**^3^**


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